:: ifocos :: » We Media Miami 2008

We’re all in this together

Dale Peskin — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:02:56 +0000

A lot of people have emailed me about my remarks, considered provocative by some, at the Interactive Media Conference in Las Vegas. Here’s what I said:

“We trust people to drive moving vehicles at high speeds on our highways. We arm them and ask them to fight wars in the name of democracy. We put life and death decisions in their hands as juries deciding the fate of their fellow citizens. But we don’t trust them to participate in the news and information that impacts their lives? What’s up with that?”

Then I told attendees, mostly managers of news web sites, that “putting a wall between you and your audience is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.”

In our “debate,” my old friend Arizona Daily Star publisher John Humenik generally supported the idea of “user-generated content,” but had grave concerns. “UGC on our site is essential — but not if it threatens the credibility of the environment it is built on,” he said. “Don’t allow your news brand to be somebody else’s graffiti wall.”

Why do newspaper publishers always seem to frame the debate over participatory media in terms of isolated bad behavior on their online forums — a problem that is easily managed these days?

Publishers can only discover opportunities that are as good for business as they are for democracy when they change the environments they’ve built and begin to respect their audiences.

Share This

Pro-Am World | Developing meaningful partnerships – Lou Ferrara, Michael Tippett, Kate Marymont, Lauren McCullough, David Cohn

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

The hierarchy between journalist and audience has broken down. While some fear the change, others see the enormous potential in bringing the work of professional and amateur journalists together. How are eyewitnesses, often using social networks, creating new story-telling models? What is the best way to leverage the experience of professional journalists in this new world?

Session Chair: Lou Ferrara, Deputy Managing Editor for Multimedia, The Associated Press

Michael Tippett, Founder, NowPublic
Kate Marymont, Executive Editor, The News-Press, Ft. Myers, Florida
Lauren McCullough, Online Editor, The Associated Press
David Cohn, Editor, NewAssignment and NewsTrust

Blogged by Zita Arocha

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Nonprofit World | Endowed Journalism – John Bracken, Jon Sawyer, Ellen Miller

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

As commercial journalism evolves, the influence and impact of nonprofit media is expanding. Non-profits are developing new journalistic models; advocacy groups who once relied on journalists are now making the news themselves. How do these changes effect the delivery, dissemination, and our understanding of news? What are the potential risks and benefits?

Session chair: John Bracken, MacArthur Foundation

Jon Sawyer, Executive Director, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Ellen Miller, Executive Director, Sunlight Foundation

Blogged by Adrienne Ammerman, (with additional commentary from the Pulitzer Center’s Nathalie Applewhite)

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Innovation World | Knight News Challenge – Eric Newton, Nora Paul, Amy Gahran, Gary Kebbel

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation invests $25 million in innovative approaches to journalism to strengthens local communities.

Session Chair: Eric Newton, VP, Journalism Programs, Knight Foundation

Nora Paul, Director, Institute for New Media Studies, University of Minnesota
Amy Gahran, Content Strategist and Independent Journalist
Gary Kebbel, Journalism Program Officer, Knight Foundation

Blogged by Jessica Reyes

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Activist World | Social networks for social good – Suzanne Turner, Joan Peckolick, James Carlson, Deron Triff, Matisse Bustos Hawkes

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Winning others to your social cause has never been easier. Hear how three new-media organizations are leveraging the power of social networks to prevent cancer, support the arts and much more.

Session Chair: Suzanne Turner, CEO, Turner Strategies

Joan Peckolick, Founder, Selfchec
James Carlson, CEO, Bucketworks
Deron Triff, Co-President and CEO, Changents
Matisse Bustos Hawkes, Outreach coordinator, WITNESS

Blogged by Jessie Schuster.

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Widget World | The Me Revolution – Jeff Nolan

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Sponsored by NewsGator
Advertisers and media companies are undergoing a dramatic transformation that impacts how they target and reach consumers and business users alike. Widgets and syndication services are enabling a new generation of capabilities that puts the consumer in the center and allows them to surround themselves with content from their favorite sources and discover new relevant content. Advertisers, aka “brands”, are similarly responding to this shift in behavior as they invest in creative new technologies that more deeply engage consumers and lead to richer interactions. This workshop will cover these topics and provide examples of what you can do take advantage of this shift.

Jeff Nolan, VP Business Development, NewsGator

Blogged by Jacqueline Guitierrez

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Civil Discourse – Hal Straus, Mark Jones, Steve Arend, Robin Miller, Chris Tolles

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Sponsored by Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive

New media is defined by online interactivity; no blog posting or article is complete with a comments section, for example. How do such virtual conversations influence, inform and reflect real-life public conversations? How can online community organizers keep participants on track and maintain order without stifling the conversation?

Chair: Hal Straus, washingtonpost.com

Mark Jones, Global Editor for Community, Reuters
Steve Arend, VP Digital Services, Head of Technology Innovators Group, CMP
Robin Miller, Editor, Slashdot and SourceForge, Inc.
Chris Tolles, CEO, Topix

Blogged by Sarah Schacht

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Social World | Social experiences in business – Susan Mernit, Maria Gallagher, Kaliya Hamlin, Elisa Camahort Page, John Todor, JB Holson, Dr. Isaac Prilleltensky

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Sponsored by Fleishman-Hillard

Social networking, un-conferences, wikis and other web tools can not only strength communities but also build momentum for brands and causes. Their success, however, depends on more than just digital connections. How can companies make the connection between online networks and real-world outcomes?

Session Chair: Susan Mernit, Senior Director, Yahoo! Personals

Maria Gallagher, Senior Vice President, Fleishman-Hillard
Kaliya Hamlin, Founder, Unconference.net
Elisa Camahort Page, Co-Founder, BlogHer
John Todor, Principal, The Whetstone Edge
JB Holson, CEO, NewsGator
Dr. Isaac Prilleltensky, Dean, University of Miami School of Education

Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one, two, three and four.

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

News World | Traditions and Transformation – Carin Dessauer, Neil Budde, Kinsey Wilson, Jennifer Sizemore, Maria Thomas

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Traditional (legacy) news organizations have no choice but to continue to change in order to respond to the growth of aggregators and other WeMedia players. Learn how leaders in the field are tackling editorial, business and management challenges in the culture of empowered content creatives.

Session Chair: Carin Dessauer, Senior Fellow, iFOCOS

Neil Budde, former VP and Editor-in-Chief, Yahoo! News
Kinsey Wilson, Executive Editor, USAToday and USAToday.com
Jennifer Sizemore, Executive Editor, MSNBC.com
Maria Thomas, SVP, National Public Radio

Blogged by Travis Smith

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Indigenous World | Telling our own stories – Sanjeev Chaterjee, David Sasaki, Cristina Quisbert, Luis Ramiro Beltrán

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Indigenous communities around the world have long had their stories told for them by anthropologists, journalists and documentary-film makers. Today, more and more of these communities are online, telling their own stories.

Introduced by:
Sanjeev Chaterjee, Director, Knight Center for International Media

Session Chair: David Sasaki, Rising Voices

Cristina Quisbert, Producer and Eduardo √Åvila, Director, Voces Bolivianas
Luis Ramiro Beltr√°n, Bolivian communications-research pioneer
Leonardo Ferreira, author, Centuries of Silence

Global Voices blogging (and additional commentary from Renata Avila)

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Developer’s World | Emergent content: Yours, mine, ours – Dale Peskin, Chris Willis, Eduard Danilo Ruiz, Michael Smolens, Adam Hoey

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Rather than trying to control content spiraling through the mediascape, enterprising businesses allow content to have a life of its own, as others repost, edit, parody, mashup or comment on it. While surrendering control may seem a counter-intuitive business strategy, content free-for-alls, with soft brand associations, can expand audiences, reach and influence.

Session Chair: Dale Peskin, Managing Director, iFOCOS

Chris Willis, Footnote
Eduard Danilo Ruiz, Danilo Black
Michael Smolens, CEO, DotSUB
Adam Hoey, Director, Enterprise Business Development, Proteus

Blogged by Brooks Lindsay

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Social Entrepreneurs | Journalism as a Cause – Alberto Ibarguen, Diana Wells, Keith Hammonds

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

As the economics of industrial journalism give way to the disruption and innovation of a digital, connected culture, new models of financing and practicing journalism are emerging. What lessons from social entrepreneurship are applicable here? If journalism makes the world better, should we think of it as a social cause rather than a commercial venture? Can journalism still produce financial results?

Keynote conversations with:

Alberto Ibarguen, President, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Diana Wells, President, Ashoka

Moderated by Keith Hammonds, Ashoka

Blogged by Rob Park (with additional wrap-up by Andrew Nachison)

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Networked Economics | Leveraging connections – Merrill Brown, Lawrence Wilkinson, Chris Tolles, Nic Fulton, Tom Bosco, Suha Araj

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Everything is networked: friendship, professional life, customers, knowledge, causes and commerce. These networks represent new opportunities to invent, innovate and disrupt. What do philanthropists, advocates, social entrepreneurs, tech startups, journalists, venture capitals and everyday users now have in common? Have networks changed the nature of business?

Session Chair: Merrill Brown, Chairman, NowPublic

Lawrence Wilkinson, Founder, Global Business Network
Chris Tolles, CEO, Topix
Nic Fulton, Chief Scientist, Reuters Media
Tom Bosco, VP, Video Sales, Fox Interactive Media
Suha Araj, Founder and VP of Strategy, Real Girls Media
Jennifer Carroll, VP, New Media Content, Gannett
Randy Paynter, Founder and CEO, Care2

Blogged by Lauren Movius: post one, two and three.

tags:We Media Miami 2008

Share This

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

NewsTrust Salon | Good Journalism – Fabrice Florin, Rory O’Connor and David Cohn

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Join a fascinating group discussion on how to find good journalism online, hosted by NewsTrust.net, our social news network. We will have a diverse group of journalists, educators, technologists and community leaders for this conversation. After a short presentation about NewsTrust, we will break into small work groups. First, groups will review an article together and then talk about how to discriminate between good and bad journalism. We will also discuss best practices for helping citizens sharpen their news literacy skills.
Some of the questions we’ll discuss in this one-hour event include:

what is good journalism? how can you tell it apart from misinformation?

how can we join forces online to share quality news with each other?

how can we encourage more citizens to grow their news literacy skills?

how can we improve NewsTrust.net to serve these goals?

During the meeting, we will introduce what we’re doing at NewsTrust to address these questions– and ask your thoughts on how to best expand this public service — to help more citizens make informed decisions about their lives and governments.

Session leaders: Fabrice Florin, Rory O’Connor and David Cohn, NewsTrust.net, a non-profit social news network dedicated to good journalism.

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Harnessing a distributed world – Solana Larsen, Georgia Popplewell

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

In a networked culture, innovation and creativity emerge everywhere. This workshop will illustrate how small networked teams of part-time employees and volunteers collaborate to produce Global Voices Online, a human-powered aggregator of ideas emerging from every corner of the planet.

Session leaders: Solana Larsen and Georgia Popplewell, Co-Managing Editors, Global Voices

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Working Group | Change The World – Brian Reich, Ruth Behar, Luis Ramiro Beltran, Andrew Karanja Githeko, Tom Kennedy, Pedro Paulo Poppovic, Tini Tran, Wang Wei

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

How can media and technology be used to facilitate meaningful and measurable change in our society?

Working Group Chair: Brian Reich, author, Media Rules!

Ruth Behar, professor of anthropology, University of Michigan
Luis Ramiro Beltr√°n, Bolivian journalist and scholar
Andrew Karanja Githeko, Chief Research Officer & Head: Climate and Human Health Research Unit, Kenya Medical Research Institute
Tom Kennedy, Managing Editor for Multimedia, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive
Pedro Paulo Poppovic, Editor, Sur International Journal of Human Rights
Tini Tran, correspondent, The Associated Press
Wang Wei, Senior TV anchorwoman and journalist, Shanghai Media Group

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Pitch It | Tomorrow’s best start-ups – Rick Ducey, Suha Araj, John McKinley, Joe Natoli

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Founders and would-be entrepreneurs pitch their big ideas to a panel of business-launching experts. Even if you’re not pitching an idea, come watch the competition to start the next big thing.

Chair: Rick Ducey, EVP, BIA Financial Network

Suha Araj, Founder and VP of Strategy, Real Girls Media
John McKinley, Founder, LaunchBox Digital
Joe Natoli, SVP, Business & Finance, University of Miami

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Leadership World | Women, Media and Technology – Susan Mernit, Mary Hodder, Judith Meskill, Carolyn Washburn, Barbara Kahn, Jan Schaffer

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Women and girls are a powerful force online: They users, creators and participants, as well as marketing targets for advertisers. Yet women-led businesses and gender-balanced teams in new media are more an exception than a rule. What can some of today’s female media leaders tell us about building successful businesses, leading strong teams and creating a more egalitarian workforce?

Session Chair: Susan Mernit, Senior Director, Yahoo! and blogger, Susan Mernit’s Blog

Mary Hodder, Founder, Dabble
Judith Meskill, Co-Founder, Crowd Fusion
Carolyn Washburn, Executive Editor, The Des Moines Register
Barbara Kahn, Dean, University of Miami School of Business
Jan Schaffer, Executive Director, J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism

Blogged by Jessica Mikulski, (with additional commentary from Renata Avila)

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Healthy World | The Future of Information & Communication Technologies in Health – Dr. Pascal Goldschmidt, Kendall Lockhart, Scott Mowbray, Bert van Hoof, Don Jones, Emilio Pardo, Dr. Andrew Wiesenthal, Grant Harrison

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Sponsored by the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, AARP, Kaiser Permanente and Microsoft

Leading edge thinkers discuss one of the most important and personally meaningful issues of the 21st century: How communications technology and the content delivered through it will be used to improve the health and quality of life for people worldwide.

Introduced by Dr. Pascal Goldschmidt, Dean, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

Session Chair: Kendall Lockhart, Co-Founder, Nenuphar Mobile Media

Keynote conversation with Scott Mowbray, Editorial Director, Health.com

Forum conversation:

Bert van Hoof, Director, Microsoft Health Solutions Group
Don Jones, VP, Health & Life Sciences, Qualcomm
Emilio Pardo, Chief Brand Officer, AARP
Dr. Andrew Wiesenthal, Associate Executive Director, The Permanente Federation
Grant Harrison, Vice President, Integrated Consumer Experience, Humana

Blogged by Jacqueline Kreinik: post one, two, three, four and five, (with additional commentary from Zita Arocha)

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Search World | Trust, relevance and rights – Jim Kennedy, Fabrice Florin, Mary Hodder, Josh Cohen

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

If you can’t google it, does it exist? Search functions unlock the Internet’s potential, but how can we make it easier for everyone to find relevant information and act on it? Innovative thinking about metadata, permissions and trust could provide the necessary breakthroughs.

Session Chair: Jim Kennedy, VP Strategy, The Associated Press

Fabrice Florin, Executive Director, NewsTrust
Mary Hodder, Founder, Dabble
Josh Cohen, Director, Business Development, Google News

SEARCH WORLD – Trust, Relevance and Rights (Breakout): Blogged by Jonathan Hendler

Afternoon sessions:

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Informed World | The citizen’s guide to media literacy – John Bell, Vinita Srivastava, Sam Grogg, Sara DeWitt

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Who can you trust in the We Media landscape? Where’s the line between commerce and information? No more is it a question of parsing the biases of individual media outlets: It’s time to define a global media-education agenda so everyone can understand how today’s media works, and how best to use it. Our goal: Create a set of guidelines for media literacy today.

Session Chair: John Bell, Managing Director, 360¬∞ Digital Influence, Ogilvy

Vinita Srivastava, Assistant Professor, Ryerson University
Sam Grogg, Dean, University of Miami School of Communication
Sara DeWitt, Senior Director, PBS KIDS & Parents Interactive

Blogged by Travis Smith, (with additional commentary from Renata Avila)

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Political World | Hype vs. Reality in Campaign 08 – Brian Reich, Ellen Miller, Catherine Geanuracos, Carolyn Washburn, Michael Silberman, John Della Volpe, Amy Schatz, Anthony Wojtkowiak

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

It’s supposed to be the YouTube-MySpace-power-to-the-people campaign. So why are online political junkies so frustrated with what they’ve seen so far?

Session Chair: Brian Reich, author, Media Rules!

Ellen Miller, Sunlight Foundation
Catherine Geanuracos, Live Earth
Carolyn Washburn, Executive Editor, The Des Moines Register
Michael Silberman, EchoDitto
John Della Volpe, SocialSphere
Amy Schatz, The Wall Street Journal
Anthony Wojtkowiak, MTV Street Team

Blogged by Nathaniel James, (with additional commentary from Jillian York)

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

The Power To Change The World – Andrew Nachison, J. Sebastian Traeger, Jim Brady, Katrin Verclas, Jean Marc Coicaud, Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., Darya Shaikh

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

With the traditional media losing its monopoly on information, opinion and storytelling, all sectors of society now have the power through media and communications to make themselves heard. How can we use this new power to make the world a better place?

Session Chair: Andrew Nachison, Co-Founder, iFOCOS

J. Sebastian Traege r, CEO, Razoo
Jim Brady, Executive Editor, Washingtonpost.Newsweek.Interactive
Katrin Verclas, MobileActive
Jean Marc Coicaud, Director, United Nations University
The Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., CEO, Hip Hop Caucus
Darya Shaikh, Executive Director, OneVoice

Closing Thoughts from Brian Reich, author, Media Rules!

Blogged by David Cohn, (with additional commentary from Jillian York, and comments on UNU from Renata Avila)

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Keynote Conversation II | Print Reincarnated (and other media) – Richard Sarnoff, William C. Weiss

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

With Richard Sarnoff, President, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, and William C. Weiss, Chairman &CEO, The Promar Group, Chairman, iFOCOS

Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one and two.

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Welcome and Event Introduction – We Media ‘08

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Andrew Nachison and Dale Peskin, Co-Founders, iFOCOS

Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one, two, three, and four.

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Keynote Conversation I | Print is Dead – Jeff Gomez, Roger Black

Chad Capellman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

With Jeff Gomez, author, Print is Dead and Roger Black, Principal, Danilo-Black

Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one, two, and three.

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

iFOCOS live-blog coverage of We Media 2008, organized by panel

Andrea Useem — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:09:32 +0000

As part of our on-going wrap-up of last month’s We Media Miami conference, I’m collecting here all the live-blog posts from the iFOCOS We Media blog, organized by panel.

The We Media fellows — that dynamic, hard-working group of folks who received some financial help to attend the conference, thanks to generous assistance from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation — took turns covering panels and posting their notes on our blog.

These live-blog posts serve as a written record of each panel. You can also, of course, access audio from the panels as well — eventually all the audio should be avaible.

Note: To see live-blogging and online commentary by other conference participants and fellows writing on their own sites, go to this round-up of conference blog coverage.

Panels on Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008:

Morning Sessions:

MEDIA AT THE TIPPING POINT (Intro): Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one, two, three, and four.

PRINT IS DEAD (Keynote): Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one, two, and three.

PRINT REINCARNATED (Keynote): Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one and two.

THE POWER TO CHANGE THE WORLD (Forum): Blogged by David Cohn, (with additional commentary from Jillian York, and comments on UNU from Renata Avila)

POLITICAL WORLD – Hype vs. Reality in Campaign ‘08 (Breakout): Blogged by Nathaniel James, (with additional commentary from Jillian York)

INFORMED WORLD – The Citizens Guide to Media Literacy (Break-out): Blogged by Travis Smith, (with additional commentary from Renata Avila)

SEARCH WORLD – Trust, Relevance and Rights (Breakout): Blogged by Jonathan Hendler

Afternoon sessions:

HEALTHY WORLD – The Future of Information & Communication Technologies in Health (Forum): Blogged by Jacqueline Kreinik: post one, two, three, four and five, (with additional commentary from Zita Arocha)

PITCH IT – Tomorrow’s Best Start-ups (Breakout): Blogged by Craig Smith. Post one and two.

PRO-AM WORLD (Breakout): Blogged by Zita ArochaLEADERSHIP WORLD – Women, Media and Technology (Breakout): Blogged by Jessica Mikulski, (with additional commentary from Renata Avila)

NONPROFIT WORLD – Endowed Journalism (Breakout): Blogged by Adrienne Ammerman, (with additional commentary from the Pulitzer Center’s Nathalie Applewhite)

INNOVATION WORLD – The Knight News Challenge (Breakout): Blogged by Jessica Reyes

ACTIVIST WORLD (Breakout): Blogged by Jessie Schuster.

WIDGET WORLD – The ME Revolution (Breakout): Blogged by Jacqueline Guitierrez

CIVIL DISCOURSE (Breakout): Blogged by Sarah Schacht

NEWS WORLD – Traditions and Transformation (Breakout): Blogged by Travis Smith

SOCIAL WORLD – Social Experiences in Business (Breakout): Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one, two, three and four.

INDIGENOUS WORLD – We Tell Our Own Stories (Breakout): Global Voices blogging (and additional commentary from Renata Avila)

Panels on Thursday morning, February 28:

DEVELOPER’S WORLD: Emerging Content, Yours Mine and Ours (Forum): Blogged by Brooks Lindsay

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS: Journalism as a Cause (Keynote): Blogged by Rob Park (with additional wrap-up by Andrew Nachison)

NETWORKED ECONOMICS (Forum): Blogged by Lauren Movius: post one, two and three.

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Help us round up blogs and other coverage of We Media Miami 08

Andrea Useem — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:34:12 +0000

In the previous post, I aggregated as much online content about the conference as possible. Up top, you’ll see blog posts from conference participants. Down below is coverage specifically related to the We Media/Zogby poll.

I’ll continue to update the list, so please do comment here or email me (auseem@ifocos.org) with new links or links that I’ve missed.

This list will serve as a digital archive of the conference, in addition to the live-blogging of each panel that iFOCOS fellows did for us on this blog. (A big thanks to those guys — they did a great job.)

We Media Miami, We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Digital coverage of We Media Miami 2008

Andrea Useem — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:22:53 +0000

An attempt to comprehensively round up blog posts by conference participants and attending journalists (with apologies that they are organized a bit randomly.)

Rachel Sterne: “Reuters Scientist demonstrates Mojo at We Media conference,” Ground Report blog, Feb. 27

“New Media Leaders Discuss How Campaigns Can Win,” Ground Report blog, Feb. 27

Bridget Carey: “Debate over what is online ‘community’ at We Media Miami,” Cache & Carey blog (The Miami Herald), Feb. 28

Jessica Reyes: “‘Metadata’…that’s hot!” Impromp2 blog, WBPT, Feb. 27

Chris Salzberg: “We Media: Who are ‘We?‘” Shioyama blog, March 9

“We Media: Political World – Hype versus Reality in Campaign 08,” Shioyama

“WeMedia: Power to Change the World,” Shioyama, Feb. 27

Scott Mowbray: “Will We Soon Be Storing Our Medical Information on Facebook-like Pages?” Poked and Prodded blog, March 4

Mark Jones: “The revolution may not be televised…but it will be uploaded,” Reuters editors’ blog, March 4

Matt Dickman: “We Media Miami,” Techno//Marketer blog

“Interview with Rev. Lennox Yearwood, CEO of Hip Hop Caucus,” Techno//Marketer

“Interview with Nic Fulton, Chief Scientist at Reuters,” Techno//Marketer

“Interview with the UN’s Jean Marc Coicaud,” Techno//Marketer

Solana Larsen: “LiveBlogging from WeMedia, Miami (Day 1,)” Solanasaurus, Feb. 27

“Global Voices Causes Power Outage in South Florida?” Solanasaurus, Feb. 27

John Bell: “We Media 08: Using Media to Innovate and Make the World a Little Better,” Digital Influence Mapping Project, Feb. 16

“Community Journalism: Two Innovative Efforts,” Digital Influence Mapping Project

“We Media 08/Miami: Digital Health Entertainment,” Digital Influence Mapping Project blog

“We Media 08/Miami: Digital Health Empowerment,” Digital Influence Mapping Project blog

“We Media 08/Miami: Power On!” Digital Influence Mapping Project blog

“We Media 08/Miami: Zogby/WeMedia Poll,” Digital Influence Mapping Project blog

Ellen Miller: “Here’s a Cool Thing from We Media,” Sunlight Foundation blog (talking about Knight/Ashoka partnership.)

David Cohn: “Computation Journalism – Maybe a way to describe my niche?” DigiDave.org

“We Media updates…sorta,” DigiDave.org

“Making lists for My Digital: New Tools,” Digidave.org

“Silly Bahraini Girl:” “Miami, Here I come,” Silly Bahraini Girl

“Christina Quistbert: Finding Her Voice,” Silly Bahraini Girl, Feb. 27

“Indigenous Indians on the Internet,” Silly Bahraini Girl, Feb. 27

“DotSUB,” Silly Bahraini Girl, Feb. 27

“Muted Battles in the Workforce,” Silly Bahraini Girl, Feb. 27

“NGOs...” Silly Bahraini Girl, Feb. 27

“Cell phones,” Silly Bahraini Girl, Feb. 27

“Print is Dead…Who Killed It?” Silly Bahrani Girl, Feb. 27

“Got a great idea?” Silly Bahraini Girl, Feb. 28

Georgia Popplewell: Flickr photos of Global Voices house in Miami

Matisse Bustos Hawke: “At WeMedia: Nonprofits and media; activism online and off; telling our own stories,” The Hub for Human Rights Media and Activism // Witness, Feb. 27

“Come for the swag, stay for the ideas,” EchoDitto blog (round-up of spring conferences)

Jeff Nolan: “Live Blogging We Media Miami,” Venture Chronicles blog, Feb. 27

Susan Mernit: “We Media: Power to change the world,” Susan Mernit’s blog

“We Media: Print is Dead,” Susan Mernit’s blog

“We Media: Social Entrepreneurs – Journalism as a Cause,” Susan Mernit’s blog

“We Media: Search World – Trust, Relevance and Rights,” Susan Mernit’s blog

“We Media: Backchannel Rant,” Susan Mernit’s blog

“We Media: The Threads of We Media,” Susan Mernit’s blog

“Business and Social Media Tools,” Susan Mernit’s blog

Len Witt: “Live Thinking from We Media 2008 in Miami,” PJNet.org blog

“We Media Conference 2008 More Information,” PJNet

“We Media 2008 – More Day Two,” PJNet

“Kennesaw State University Course on Internet Literacy,” PJNet

[See also: “Witt ‘covering it live’ at WeMedia 2008,” Innovation in College Journalism blog.]

Michael Froomkin: “Drinks at the We Media Conference,” Discourse.net

“We Media: First 90 Minutes,” Discourse.net

“We Media: Search Breakout,” Discourse.net

“We Media: Best Lines,” Discourse.net

Jillian York: “Political World: Hype versus Reality in Campaign 08,” Jillian York’s blog

“Live Blogging, We Media 08, Take One,” Jillian York’s blog

“Live Blogging We Media 08, Take Two,” Jillian York’s blog

“Live Blogging We Media 08 Take Three!” Jillian York’s blog

“Oh Miami, my heart is true,” Jillian York’s blog

“We Media Miami wrap-up,” Jillian York’s blog

Amy Gahran: “The catch is the ‘challenge’ part,” Contentious.com

Travis Smith: “Arriving in Miami for We Media 2008,” Unvarnished blog, Hop Studios

Lova Rakotomalala: “A bit of Malagasism,” Rakoto’s Rants blog

“Live blogging at the We Media conference in Miami,” Rakoto’s Rants blog

“Live blogging We Media: Suite (femmes et media),” Rakoto’s Rants (in French.)

Barbara Iverson: “CoverItLive: Review from We Media Conference,” Romensko E-Media Tidbits by Barbara Iverson

“From We Media in Miami,” CurrentBuzz blog (Barbara Iverson)

“Pro-Am panel,” CurrentBuzz blog

“Information Literacy Session,” CurrentBuzz blog

“Social Entrepreneurs panel,” CurrentBuzz blog

“Networked Economics at We Media,” Current Buzz blog

“My Vuvox experiment,” Current Buzz blog

“Notes on We Media & Social Networking,” Current Buzz blog

“uVu and a connected community,” WPBT blog

Michael Tippett: “12 changes in media,” The Social Graph blog, Feb. 20

Susanne Goldstein: “How the Internet helped me create a movement,” The Social Age

Digital coverage specifically on the We Media/Zogby poll:

“Silly presentation of polls,” Businessweek.com’s Blogspotting blog, Feb. 28

“Nearly 70 Percent of Americans Believe Media is Out of Touch,” Huffington Post, Feb. 29

“More Americans Turning to Web for News,” CNet News, (Reuters article reprint), Feb .29

“More Americans Turning to Web for News,” Reuters UK, Feb. 29

“Hillary has lots of anti-media company,” U.S. News and World Report blog, “Washington Whispers” by Paul Bedard

“Americans are a bit more satisfied by journalism these days,” Romensko, Feb. 28 (link to Washington Whispers column.)

“Survey: Print and Broadcast News Fading Fast,” column by Amy Gahran in Romensko’s E-Media tidbits

“Survey Says: 64% Believe Mainstream Media are out of touch,” Little Green Footballs, Feb. 2

“Two-thirds of Americans view journalism as ‘out of touch,’” new poll shows,” Editors Weblog, March 3 (from World Editors Forum)

“Relevant Journalism in the Digital Age,” Greenslade blog (Roy Greenslade at The Guardian,) March 3

Headline posted on Techmeme (linking back to iFOCOS release)

“Is Old Media Really Dead?” Paul Lamb on Media Shift’s Idea Lab, March 2

“Survey finds two-thirds dissatisfied with the quality of journalism,” Critical Distance blog, March 1

“More Americans turning to web for news,” Seeds of Growth blog, March 3

“64% of Americans think journalism is ‘out of touch,’” Citizen Media Watch, March 2

“Nearly 2/3rds Think Mainstream Media is out of touch,” Holy Coast blog, March 2

“Survey Says: 64% Believe Mainstream Media Are Out Of Touch,” Blog-o-Fascists, March 2

“The Decline of Traditional Journalism,” Unspun blog, March 2

And many, many more ….too many to list (but others include Penplusbytes blog, SouthWestDailyTimes, LostRemote, NewsMax, Stuff.co.nz.)

Digital coverage also appears in Italian, Czech, Russian, Arabic, Japanese, Bahasa Indonesian/Malaysian, Portuguese, Danish, and another Scandanavian language.

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Audio for Civil Discourse, Health, News World, Women Media and Technology and Political World sessions added

Chad Capellman — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:00:58 +0000

More audio from sessions has been added. The new sessions added to the existing sessions are:

:: Civil Discourse
:: The Future of Information & Communication Technologies in Health
:: News World | Traditions and Transformation
:: Leadership World | Women, Media and Technology
:: Political World | Hype vs. Reality in Campaign 08

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

In case you didn’t meet them at the conference…

Andrea Useem — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:53:35 +0000

Last week’s We Media conference in Miami was a blur of interesting people I wish I had more time to talk to. Some people, of course, I didn’t get a chance to speak with at all. I was delighted, then, to see that Matt Dickman, director of Digital Marketing at Fleisman-Hillard in Cleveland posted three great interviews with conference speakers. Check them out on his blog:

Interview with Rev. Lennox Yearwood, CEO of Hip Hop Caucus

Interview with Nic Fulton, Chief Scientist at Reuters

Interview with the UN’s Jean Marc Coicaud

UPDATE: Matt reports he has 4-5 other interviews from the conference that he will post shortly — we’ll try to round up those links here, or you can keep up with his blog, Techno//Marketer.

we media 2008, We Media Miami 2008

Share This

We Media News Recap: Americans are deeply dissatisfied with their journalism; Knight Invests $3 million in Ashoka

Andrew Nachison — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:28:52 +0000

More than 300 people from 13 countries gathered last week in Miami for our annual deep dive into the emergence of We Media as a defining force for the connected society. We’re already working on several big ideas we heard to take the conversation forward – through new research, the We Media Community, member working groups and other projects. We hope you’ll get involved – and dive in to the follow-up discussion now. You can review notes, audio (video archives coming soon) and add your own responses in the conference blog.

More to come soon.

First – in case you missed it – here are two big news items announced at We Media Miami that you should review if you missed them last week:

Technorati Tags: journalism, philanthropy, socialentrepreneurs, wemedia

1. iFOCOS Research finding: Two thirds of Americans – 67% – believe traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news. For the second year in a row we’ve documented a devastating lack of satisfaction with journalism in American – and an opportunity to do something about it. Details here. You can also find commentary on the results in The Guardian (UK), BusinessWeek and TechCrunch (and, of course, throughout the blogosphere). We’ll have more to say on the study and its implications in the coming weeks.

2. Knight Foundation invests $3 million in Ashoka to fund social entrepreneurs in journalism. This is a big deal – a major philanthropy, and one of the few with an interest in journalism, moves further from traditional containers of news to seed innovative and untested new approaches. Ashoka’s global experience with social entrepreneurs in other fields will be applied to support 30 people who “do” journalism. What does that mean and what will this investment yield? Nobody knows – and that’s a daring basis for any investment, and perhaps as good a definition as any of what social entrepreneurship is all about. Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibarguen and Ashoka President Diana Miller announced the investment at We Media Miami last week, and they answered some questions about it. Here are some of our live blogging team’s initial notes from that conversation, further thinking from Susan Mernit and Ogilvy’s John Bell, and here’s the formal press release.

Share This

Social Entrepreneurs

robpark — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 04:43:55 +0000

“Journalism should have a profound social impact,” said Alberto Ibarguen, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. This quote defines the root of the Knight Foundation’s partnership with the Ashoka: Innovator for the Public.

The Knight Foundation will invest $3 million in Ashoka to find social entrepreneurial journalists. This partnership will fund fellowships to 30 lucky and hard working journalists for three years.

Both organizations are looking for journalist that will create social change in geographically specific communities. But this partnership will be, “a tension filled relationship” according to Ibarguen.

The Knight foundation has historically been focused on journalism from a American perspective while Ashoka has its roots in a global context. That tension as well as other criteria distinguishing quality journalism from advocacy will have to be worked out between the two massive organizations.

However, Diana Wells, president of Ashoka, clearly defines the qualities they are looking for in a journalist:

Creativity – An ability to combine visionary goal setting with a practical approach.
Entrepreneurial quality – A total commitment to changing patterns and systems.
Commitment to social impact – The potential of the idea to solve an endemic problem.
Ethical fiber – An ability to inspire others by strength of character and integrity.

(Taken Directly From Ashoka’s website: http://www.ashoka.org/node/3833)

Once the fellows are selected they will receive three years of funding. Ashoka will also provide a community of peers to help and encourage the fellow while providing professional network. Ashoka hopes this will “mid-wife” the idea.

According to Wells, 95% of Ashoka’s fellow are still working on their projects after five years, in contrast to a 5% success rate small business start-up given the same time.

While the odds of a project succeeding are rather high, odds of a receiving a fellowship is rather dicey.

Deron Triff, founder and CEO of Changents a for profit business, questioned both Ibarguen and Wells about their stance in funding non-profit organizations over for-profit. Wells and Ibargeun both recognized that for-profit business can be socially conscious and can be more effective than non-profits. However, neither answer seemed to satisfy the heart of Triff’s question.

Another audience member also asked how these organizations recognize “innovation,” an inherently difficult task. While thinking outside the box maybe innovative it could also be seen as socially unacceptable and therefore never adopted. Again the answer doesn’t really seem to provide an insight to receiving a fellowship.

Yet, this shouldn’t stop anyone from applying for the fellowship, just don’t bank on it.

The Knight Foundation will invest $3 million in Ashoka to find social entrepreneurial journalists. This partnership will fund fellowships to 30 lucky and hard working journalists for three years.

However, Diana Wells, president of Ashoka, clearly defines the qualities they are looking for in a journalist:

Creativity – An ability to combine visionary goal setting with a practical approach.
Entrepreneurial quality – A total commitment to changing patterns and systems.
Commitment to social impact – The potential of the idea to solve an endemic problem.
Ethical fiber – An ability to inspire others by strength of character and integrity.

(Taken Directly From Ashoka’s website: http://www.ashoka.org/node/3833)

According to Wells, 95% of Ashoka’s fellow are still working on their projects after five years, in contrast to a 5% success rate small business start-up given the same time.

While the odds of a project succeeding are rather high, odds of a receiving a fellowship is rather dicey.

Yet, this shouldn’t stop anyone from applying for the fellowship, just don’t bank on it.

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Audio from opening, keynotes and Change the World sessions

Chad Capellman — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:15:51 +0000

Audio from the opening remarks of We Media 2008, the Print is Dead, Print Reincarnated and The Power to Change the World sessions are now available for streaming through this post or individual download through the player embedded here. Please check back for more updates.

(Photography by Tom Stepp)

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Networked Economics – key quotes cont…

lmovius — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:39:44 +0000

Here’s some key quotes that Craig Smith noted:
jen: connects moms together
randy: care2
“[care2 is all about] Helping people feel empowered”

chris: topix
“nobody reads the newspaper but everyone wants to be in it” “[social networks] will lead to a 10% jump in world productivity over the next few years”

suha: real girls media
“[on Real Girls Media] the ultimate goal is to find your neighbor” “[with consumers] lead by example”
“future of social platforms will start shaking out into the niches”

nick: reuters
“crowd sourcing isn’t perfect”
“[in the future we'll see more mammoth social platforms like] i’m a human being network”

thomas: myspace
“[the future of myspace is] relevant programming delivered to niche audiences”

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Networked Economics cont…

lmovius — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:25:50 +0000

Question: What is the dialogue like in business today? Is it fear/excitement?

Lawrence:
The dialogue in business is a spectrum from anxious to terrified!
The logic from one to many may no longer apply, or may need to make room for this new model.
Organizational form (manufacturing economics) that tend to oligopoly may not apply today.
Challenges to all dimensions in corporate life. If this shift is indeed this big, then the implications are big and will be difficult to deal with.

Randy: How people’s lives in the field change because of civic engagement? – Most people feel dis-empowered, and this was surprising. Problem is that people feel that can’t effect change. Our goal is to bring sustainability ideas to the masses, and we want to let them know they can make a difference in their day to day life. This empowerment may lead to people being more engaged, in politics and voting, for example. We are trying to make change from the bottom up.

Suha: Real Girls has integrated a range of voices, from seasoned writers to people just telling their stories.

Tom: Commercial business have changed. Everyone is speaking to each other in a non-linear conversation. Complete breakdown of what it takes to create scalable programming.
The implications for people making programming is great; people can make their voice heard. MySpace, for example, is great for this. People have the means to make their voices heard. They are outlets to get your voice heard. The marketplace enables people to find information in economic ways.

Market value has deteriorated for Gannett, vs. MySpace whose values has substantially increased.
Jennifer: MySpace and social network spaces are reaching communities that perhaps newspapers are not. So they are rolling out social networking sites to reach more of the community, from moms and dads to soccer coaches. At a very local level, they seek to connect people with similar interests through social sites.

This panel has a good mix of incumbents and new players.
We have discussed barriers to entry. We have not talked about barriers to exit, which apply to companies that must adapt to new environment. How to put a traditional business in momentum?

Tom: Look at companies MySpace and Gannet. They may seem different, but we are dependent on each other. We need an authoritative voice. It’s not old media, but it’s an expert voice.

Chris:
There is an expectation of interactivity, and you can’t stand in its way. 85% use of our site is on the commentary.Five years ago, try to sell ads on user generated content, ad agencies would never consider this, but there is a huge change today.

Jennifer:
Its not just about connecting, but we can provide new sources of information. People can search databases. By layering ability to search documents, we find people are solving problems in their community through us. It’s not just between new/old media, but it is both. We see that we have an exponential area of growth.

Merrill: We have not yet discussed “disruption”. How does Craigs List change business model of newspapers?

Tom: It’s a return on investment, not disruption. It’s disruptive that the consumer impacts the return on investment. Social networking leads to return on investment: 70% of purchase intent was from momentum effect. MySpace and commercial market place is not at expense of anyone, Tom says.

It comes down to trust. The “common” man is providing value. We all must become our own experts. So the experts are disrupted.

Lawrence: There is more marketing money around. If this urge to co-create is genuine, then 15 years from now, it will all be about aggregating. Marketing money will recede in the mix of business expense. You won’t tell people what they want and where to find it; they will tell you what they want.
It’s the extension of the logic of the media to commerce at large.

Audience member from Consumer Report: We have tension between expertise and desire of customers to do their own product reviews. How do you integrate these 2 things? Should we pull them apart on the site or let viewers see both side by side?

Finance – they will not stop buying information from Reuters. They can’t just rely on the information from crowd sourcing. It depends on the size of the transaction! To buy a blender, on the other hand, the consumer wants to see expert and all individual’s opinions. People want to see what the expert thinks AND what lots of others think. But advertisers are scared of loss of control.

The consumer isn’t willing to pay what we thought. Model must be more efficient. So cost being driven out of the system. This is disruptive.

—

Solana from Global Voices. Are you changing user behavior? Or are you just trying to make money on something people are doing anyway?

Tom: People have always wanted to make their voice heard. We are just giving them a voice. Consumers are getting smart.

Suha. We are hosting a party. People are going to do what they want to do. We can guide them. We lead by example. The consumer is telling us what they want.

—

Merrill asks a wrap up question. If you asked the WeMedia folks how many were on Facebook a few years ago, it would not be too many. Today, everyone is on Facebook. What does this mean for the world we live in and the world of wemedia? How does the scale of social networking impact us? What will it look like in 2 years?

Tom: On MySpace, there is relevant programming to niche audiences, but this is scalable.

Nick: The whole thing has not evolved yet. Some social networks will be: I’m a human being, I’m in business. MySpace has been turned in to a platform, and this can be copied.

Suha: The increase of social networking platforms means transparency. Being on networks, someone can take my photo, and there it is online. So you have to act like you are always on air. The social platform is the cost of entry.

Chris: If you have the ability to network everyone, it’s the next layer of connectivity. This is an amazing possibilty in productivity. This willlead to 10% jump in world productivity.

Randy: There is a revolution already occurring. The social network is only part of the solution. There is less value in individual applications, as they all can get you information. So it has to come back down to our personal values. There will be places on web that is home that corresponds to your values.

Jennifer: It’s going to continue to exponentially grow, but it will also get smaller. Twitter is good way to stay connected in a few characters.

we media 2008we media 2008 , We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Networked Economics

lmovius — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:13:37 +0000

Networked Economics | Leveraging connections
Everything is networked: friendship, professional life, customers, knowledge, causes and commerce. These networks represent new opportunities to invent, innovate and disrupt. What do philanthropists, advocates, social entrepreneurs, tech startups, journalists, venture capitals and everyday users now have in common? Have networks changed the nature of business?Session Chair: Merrill Brown, Chairman, NowPublic

Lawrence Wilkinson, Founder, Global Business Network
Chris Tolles, CEO, Topix
Nic Fulton, Chief Scientist, Reuters Media
Tom Bosco, VP, Video Sales, Fox Interactive Media
Suha Araj, Founder and VP of Strategy, Real Girls Media
Jennifer Carroll, VP, New Media Content, Gannett
Randy Paynter, Founder and CEO, Care2

This panel addresses how many of the elements which we have been discussing at We Media ties together. What does this networked world mean? This panel addresses many of the networked dimensions of our lives and brings together a range of perspectives.

Merrill beings by asking the panel to address the big question of: How is the networked economy changing how you do business?

Lawrence: We overestimate impact of technology in short term and underestimate in long term. Social networks are changing (almost) every sphere of business, but we haven’t realized full extent of change.
Marketing, development, engagement, but gives us a taste of the full scale re-invention that we have to audience in our business models

Jennifer: Potential to reconnect communities. Her focus is how to capture soul of a community and help them to live their lives. Launched site connecting moms together, and notes connection between mothers and have its facilitating connection and ability to share their lives.

Randy: Online community / social news site to empower individuals. , members are “conscious consumers” because we live in a connected world. We must care about the environment around us.
Two sides to affecting change: the me, and the we. Tell people to live a healthy lifestyle; help people to impact their community. Change seen in the moving money from direct mail to online. 20 billion market, opportunity to help non profit be more effective. Al Gore – sea change with a much larger audience.

Chris: Impact of Internet is not just like TV, radio etc. The interactivity changes everything. We’ve underestimated impact of this; it changes how you do business and make money.
Must maximize engagement.

Suha: what we see in marketplace is underestimated. If big players don’t listen to consumer, they fail. So, they integrate consumer. Plus, there is a market that is empowered and expects to have their voice heard. How do you bridge these two in the market? Real Girls – built to integrate the two. The brand validates these voices and bloggers. So Real Girls is a place for writers to be part of a community. We’re seeing an integrated model, and we need new ways to curate these voices.

Nick: (Reuters). The core bodies of Reuters remain the same, apply new technology. But the Internet since its not one way, does make differences. But the core value (first, accurate etc) remains the same. There are more voices out there, so it makes our job harder, but technology makes our job easier. Our business is not that affected.

Tom: (MySpace TV)
There is a non-linear discussion. Conversations before were linear. Now, there is complete breakdown. From a business capacity, the programming comes from everyone now. There is a circular conversation, which is a total change even from 5-6 years ago.

…..

we media, We Media Miami 2008, we media miami 2008 economics

Share This

Developer’s World

Brooks — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:52:29 +0000

The idea, for developers, is to produce the tools that allow us to share the content that is important to us and our world. This can even extend to the most emotional and historically important of arenas, including memorials of soldiers in the Vietnam War. Chris Willis of Footnote.com is enabling living soldiers of the Vietnam War to write memorials of soldiers that were killed in combat or who have died since. The key is that Footnote enables living soldiers to uncover information about soldiers in their platoon so that they can write these memorials. And, what of the Vietnam Memorial? What an interesting database of information that is important for us to re-hash, re-organize, and uncover things like buddies who died in combat together, revealing the highly emotionally and memorially important relational networks that make up the tragic history of the Vietnam War. These memories can be revealed and re-organized and exposed to better reveal the depths of the human experience in war. A face and narrative needs to be put on the names of the dead, and technology can help enable this.

Michael Smolens says that video is very important to mutual understanding between people. It is powerful enough to even change the minds of people that strap bombs to their chest and kill other people. Smolens’ Dotsub enables people to share and find videos in their own languages, which is very difficult to do in existing search functions in YouTube and other video sources. It also allows users to translate and write subtitles to videos, enhancing, again, understanding across language barriers. And, of course, individuals can personalize their account so that subtitles that fit their particular language needs appear with all of the videos that they are watching automatically. This has the potential to eliminate the language barrier that accompanies video streaming, thus giving videos their important visceral power in improving understanding. This can change hatreds and biases. This can bridge divides. This can save lives.

Adam Huey spoke about Proteus’s mobile content services. Why not access basic web via your phone? This is what Proteus does. But, we need to understand that the user experience over the interface of a phone and its small screen is very different than over our computers. But, that’s ok. We still want it. And, it’s very important at certain times, particularly at times of the day when we are active, on our feet, and yet want to uncover and act on information. For example, what if we are downtown and want to go to a movie. Proteus allows you to browse for tickets and, equally importantly, act to buy your tickets right there and then, while your on your feet, when the demand arises in your head. It also allows you to share information while you’re on your feet and inspiration strikes. Hungry to write? Why wait? Put it down right now standing on the corner of 9th and Madison when your inspirational subject matter is in front of you.

Great quotes:

Chris Willis of Foonote.com – “If you can’t find it, it doesn’t exist”.

Adam Hoey of Proteus – “Democratize the mobile web…Bridge the digital divide in the third world…the channel of the future” “Put the tool in the users hand [physically, of course, but also conceptually, letting the user take it in any direction that they want]”

Chris Willis of Footnote.com – “The anthropology of it all [cell phones]…cultural anthropology”

What are some core principles of fostering that 1% of dedicated content-creators?:

*Reputation
*Meaning
*Dialogue
*Communities
*Risk-takers are the ones
*Spheres of trust

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

PRO-AM World

Zita Arocha — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 03:48:39 +0000

The relationship between professional and amateur journalists is starting to emerge. Explore how non-professionals connected by social networks and tools influence new models of storytelling and workflow involving eyewitnesses, amateurs and professionals.

Session Chair: Louis Ferrara, Managing Editor Sports, Entertainment & Multimedia, The Associated Press

With:

Michael Tippett, Co-Founder, NowPublic

Kate Marymont, Executive Editor, The News-Press, Ft. Myers, FL

Lauren McCullough, Online Editor, The Associated Press

David Cohn, Editor, NewAssignment and NewTrust

Discussion:

Ferrara: AP is working with NowPublic to figure out how to harness citizen journalism.

Marymont: We have been working very hard to create a newsroom without walls. We try to think of no walls between audience and us. We completely agree with wemedia that the web has changed how the public consumes media. They want to be involved. Why shouldn’t we be the hub of all that. We are always looking for ways to tear down walls and partner with our public. We try to involve the public in investigative and first amendment work. Examples: we fought to get records of FEMA after the hurricane and we had a long battle but we won. We got 2.2 million files and created a database, turned it loose to the public. We wanted to analyze how neighbors were treated. We had to tell them you tell us. The database to date has had more than 60,000 searches. This is powerful information. Also in 07, we had three children die at hands of stepfathers while under care of the Children and Families Department in Florida. It was a two-year project. We turned to the public and built a site within a site – a children’s resource center. When children are dying I think it’s OK to take a position on this. We are now a one-stop shop for people who need info on that subject. One more thing: Recently, we launched a redesign that includes social networking tools for anyone who wants to communicate. We want to be the hub. One important way is to let our disenfranchised community get their stories out.

Tippett: We have about 100,000 people in 4000 cities sending us material. We’ve been working with AP for a while. This is the early stage in evolution of citizen journalism. We want to be able to dispatch people to locations of news.

Cohn: We’ve done a few experiments. One is assignment Zero, which explores the relationship between journalists and citizens. The point of the project is to spur innovation in journalism, and try to figure out the role of journalists when people live lives online. There are three steps in journalism – collecting, filtering information, and presenting information, which can be multimedia now. To the extent technology changes these steps, we are trying to see how technology can be a boon to help journalists do their jobs.

McCullough: Our challenge is to find ways to collect what people have to say and still make the material worthy of having the AP name on it.

Ferrara: Kate (Marymont), in examples talked about, how did you get newsroom buy in on what you did? Was it universal? How did you measure success with those efforts?

Marymont: The obstacles were internal at first – the public was ready to go. Journalists inside were apprehensive. They thought this was a plot to reduce the workforce. But they had to learn that this supplements our journalism, that our partners in the community are strengthening our journalism. We had good early successes with some projects. Now 95 percent of our staff believes, because our journalism is better. We can tap into knowledge in our community we might not have otherwise. We get stories we wouldn’t know otherwise, get documetns we wouldn’t have, it makes what we do better.

Ferrara: What has changed in the AP newsroom?

McCullough: We had the exact same experience; everyone was very skeptical and paranoid that we’d be stripping journalism bylines off stories. But early on we had a success when there was a cyclone and the public hooked us up with one of our citizen members who provided two photos and also provided information because he was an eyewitness. The reporters interviewed him and treated him as a source. Over last year, that’s been the biggest change. There is more acceptance of citizen journalism. Virginia Tech forced people to go to Face Book and see there was information there that was not on TV or that we were not hearing from people on the street. Then a bridge collapsed, we immediately went to Face book. We ran 89 citizen journalism photos. In the NIU shooting, a reporter with a Face Book account pulled names from the TV, looked on Face Book, messaged them and, as a result, one of lead quotes was a girl who had been in the auditorium. She was found through Face book. I think it’s been a big year for people to put aside their fear of youth and embrace it as another place to go and use the information.

Ferrara: When you hear all this, how does skill set change for journalists?

Cohn: I always say job description for journalists is changing for skills and the mindset. With skill set it’s the need to be a web native and knowing what tools are out there and you can harness. Need to know what tools are out there to communicate with people. For the mind sent, it’s doing source organizing and managing and I didn’t learn in Journalism school. Now we need to mange relationships with people through give and take online. This may irk you. But if you look at the way politicians and online organizers do it, they know how to send out queries, asks, because they want money. Journalists need to figure out how to manage relationships on line.

Tippett: I think the point about social networks is key. We are going to a more active role in helping to shape the agenda of what is news, so plugging into mainstream news and sending people to cover and integrate into social networks is effective. We are working with the AP because of recognition that the network of trust is moving toward social networks… the same is true for news.

For us the tool sets we are building is integrating social networks and the face book experience so it can be used by news organizations. We are about extracting a range of meaning across the landscape. How do you get information out of private systems and include that in a system for the news consuming public.

Audience: What I am now hearing is a next step where you let your public boss you around. Will the assignment desk become the place where people will vote for what they want to read, where we no longer do things for them, but they do things for us.

Tippett: The dispatch tool we build to plug into we will make available to people.

Cohn: Newsrooms now are where an editor assigns a story. The editor says what’s the photo? But where is the public feedback here? Conversation happens through the public. Editors are there to make sure the conversation is constructive, etc. I might go to newsroom in 20 years and they might send me to the best bloggers out there.

Marymont: There is no formal feedback loop, but our attempt to partner (with the public) has had that effect. The effect is starting to be there.

Tippett: You maybe are talking about a branding issue. There is now less resistance to having the agenda set from outside the organization.

Marymont: But if a community says this is happening you have to look into it – and we will.

Ferrara: I am still skeptical about this. We get a hard time getting people to vote, and to get people to provide credible information (to news outlets) takes more time.

Marymont: We are not at the point where citizens are doing fully informed journalism. But that doesn’t have to be the goal. They can ask them a question, post a video, etc.

Tippett: There are two camps: Traditional news organizations who want to get a Walter Cronkite (citizen journalist) for free. Then the citizens who are taking snapshots and they don’t understand the mechanism the snapshots go through to become news. These two have to come together, integrate.

Marymont: We have more citizen witnesses than citizen journalists.

Audience: Journalism is not a product but process. Can we have different parts of process distributed among groups of people so the product does not have to look like what you would see in traditional journalism?

Cohn: There are active forms of citizen journalism where I go out and report on something. There are also acts of citizen journalism. At the filter level, it’s easy for citizens to be engaged in news. Fast Company re did its website and included fast talk, where they are creating a database of users. People who respond to that don’t know they are doing journalism. The problem with citizen journalism is that it feels like they are doing a college midterm paper again. So the question for newsroom is now to make it easier to be engaged.

Tippett: We don’t call them citizen journalists on our site. But people are accidentally doing journalism.

Audience: There are not a lot of citizen journalism efforts out there so we have to get members to overcome that. Mainstream is still along way away from getting citizens to engage in a meaningful way.

Ferrara: At the AP we have success in the market place because when it comes from the AP there is no question about it – it’s accurate. It will come down to the market differentiating for itself where it will get its information.

Audience: How is (citizen journalism) affecting your business model?

Tippett: People consume information for different reasons. They read AP because it’s more likely to be factually true. They go to citizen stuff because they want the wild west of what they want to talk about, and be connected to like-minded people. It’s more about a relationship of like-minded people.

Audience: I disagree. People are reacting to the arrogance of mainstream media and they are going to non-traditional sources of information.

Ferrara: I am skeptical that people will do it in a way that has high value to people out there. We get a lot of citizen photos of bending palm trees in storms. We want material that we would not have otherwise had and exclusive and it’s actual content. I am skeptical that people are producing that. We found that in a bridge collapse, at Virginia Tech, content comes from these events but does it distinguish itself on the landscape? In the NIU shooting we got 1000 pictures but 900 were relatively the same. What learned out of Virginia Tech and NIU is that, guess what, you don’t stop to take pix. So how do you get that content? I want everyone to capture a Zagruder film.

Audience: How do you ensure accuracy in public content?

McCullough: “The vetting process is the same as if a crazy person calls us.” She speaks to the NowPublic manager, gathers information, sends it to the AP photo editors, the photo editors evaluate the photo and vet the photo. “Because it’s AP it’s a longer process. We get the OK on something then it goes out on the wire.”

Audience: Citizen journalism is in its infancy and it’s too early to cast judgment on its viability but there is enormous promise.

Cohn: We are talking about citizen journalism as it bubbles up. Minnesota Public radio now has a database of listeners and if they want to know something they ask them. For example, they wanted to know how dangerous is route 23. They looked at database of who lives there and asked them for responses. You can get a better sense of who readers are and that will inform reporting in the future. We can ask and accept feedback. It works both ways.

Tippett: We are in the second inning here and one of issues that causes friction is that where there is a vetting process and it can be onerous. But that friction will be reduced over time. And as we establish a cadre of reporters who have a history, we will have mechanisms for determining credibility. If you have a person who has had 15 photos published, the friction level goes down.

McCullough: Citizen journalism isn’t new to the public. In the case of Colombia shuttle a doctor took the first pix. Now we know we have a great doctor who takes photos and we can go back to him. He’s proven his worth.

Audience: What actions of citizen journalism will be useful and what proportion will be those you produce? What about covering corruption, which will have different incentives?

Tippett: I think it will be an evolutionary process. In terms of motivation of our users don’t want to get paid. A lot of citizen journalism is therapeutic. If you look at the London bombings, there was no financial incentive (for citizen journalists) but they couldn’t believe that happened. It’s a natural impulse to want to tell people things. But over time we’ll see citizen journalism about cultural events people engaged are with. People are doing wacky and unusual things, that kind of underground will be talked about by people. Will we ever have a citizen Journalist deepthorat? And will we believe him or her? I don’t know. But will see lighter stuff becoming part of mix.

Audience: A lot of reporting at Reuters is financial. And a story that makes the wire moves markets. There are many ethical issues that can arise.

Cohn: CJ does lend itself to eyewitness accounts more than others. And no matter what the topic query there are experts out there. The threshold to write a story about the environment is higher.

Marymont: We have had success in recruiting CJ volunteers with expertise in certain areas. We solicited people who believed government should be held accountable and they are smart retirees we call on. A retired school superintendent helps us go through the school budget. We check them out; make sure they don’t have agendas. They believe in what we do.

Audience: Crowd sourcing intrigues me. You did an experiment with sewer bills. Please talk about that.

Marymont: In one of the suburbs there was a utility expansion and the rates shot up. We sent out solicitations to the public on do you know what’s going on – 6000 people submitted pieces of information. They told us about back room meetings, they submitted audits, all because of crowd sourcing. We broke stories because of the knowledge and wisdom of the community. Some officials were fired… The story developed over many weeks with pieces of information; it unfolded online.

Cohn: It’s easy to do. If you have a blog you can write a survey and publish it.

Audience: What are the demographics of the people who contribute?

Tippett: We break it down to two groups – Wikipedia types who are nerds about a topic and passionate about their area and subject – and eyewitnesses who are at the right place or the wrong place. Wikipedia folks are older. And the ones who send in photos are younger than I am.

Audience: Do you think people will want to participate as C J?

Tippett: I think there is information overload. But this will define the value of news. The vast majority of people are not citizen journalists – it’s a small, passionate group, who are atypical for the most part.

Cohn: people are living more and more of life on line. I go to the web to solve problems… As long as people are living life online then CJ hasn’t reached its tipping point. CJ is still a little secret.

Ferrara: Also what is value of content that’s there? A lot of CJ that’s out there has been pure luck. The video of 911 or the Tsunami is that people happened to be there and we acquired it from them. Will they go out and shoot news? I don’t know.

Audience: Is it appropriate to provide incentives to citizen journalists? Giving them payback.

Ferrara; It’s only a mater of time before people ask for a lot of money. Eventually, people will pick up on why they are not getting paid.

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Mernits asks us what do you not know and what do you want to know

biverson — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:17:33 +0000

“Any community that is large and diverse, will have sub-communities” says Elisa, but these sub-communities need rules that apply to everyone to lead to express disagreement without flaming. Blogher did not “silo” women’s interests. Members hop around from topics. Knitting and mommy blogs were here examples of different communities and you should be social online just like in life, with people you want to hang with, and sore to match with the community.This was said in response to one fellow who was kind of put out by the sub-group of twitterers. Dean Isaac puts bridging and bonding out there as important differences. Communities of exclusion need to balance bonding and bridging so they don’t become communities of hate like the Nazis.Todor brings up Meetup.com as a method for facilitating bridging and bonding.Now Elisa brings up the diversity issue — how come there was only black guy on a panel? In Blogher, of course all the speakers are women, but she needs to reach out to gays, women of color, and women of a different political view.Susan is wrapping up now — “it does take work, even if the tools are easy to use.” Bringing it back to business, how can you bring this back to clients and selling and business. She tells an anecdote about Hallmark cards and now Hallmark has built relationships with bloggers. Now Dean Isaac says a community without values, without a sense of community, says that marketing can be antithetical to true community — if you have to make someone think there is something wrong with their body to sell as product, what kind of community will be built around that? Yet, communities share values. Mernits notes the “inherent tension” that arises when community, products, and commercialization meet. Off to Mojitos, I think…

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

The amazing work of Bolivian Voices

Renata Avila — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:08:44 +0000

What will be the result if you put together millenary cultures that preserved their memory and traditions in spite of repression and poverty, enthusiastic youth and volunteers discovering new media? You might be surprised of the amazing contents produced by Voces Bolivianas and Rising Voices (a project by Global Voices). In the year of the preservation of Endangered Languages by UNESCO, it brings results as you can see now online indigenous languages as Aymara then translated into spanish, french, english or even japanese.

Silenced, ignored or trivialized, communities around the world have preserved their identities. But expressions of folklore evolved in an amazing way. Indeed a language reflects a view of the world, but in some places it has been totally ignored. Often mainstream media do not offer a real space or real tools for indigenous or “different” people, they are “the others”. Ignorance of the voice of the others is the worst enemy of peace.

The Director of Rising Voices, David Sasaki, and Voces Bolivianas´s Project Director Eddie Avila (who is also the Editor of Global Voices for Latin America), did an amazing work on it, sharing their time and skills, with a small grant and a a lot of enthusiastic people willing to learn and contribute, you can show the world real stories, real insights of peoples daily life but also can empower people´s creativity, like Cristina Quisbert who had done an amazing job on her blog Bolivia Indigena. There you can see how bolivian people lives, their clothes, you can see a bolivian wedding, listen to traditional music that musicians are happy to share with the world, and also you can see how a blog can give a positive, different image of indigenous world reality.

Forget about the image of indigenous people you have in mind, in Cristina´s blog you can find a whole different reality full of energy, colors, magic, stories, faces and views alive and sharing their daily life with the world in the Aymara region of El Alto.

As a final remarks Cristina said: aymara peoples have a lot to share with the world? And I say to We Media why don´t you take a look on Voces Bolivianas and the other amazing projects of Rising Voices?

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Social World as a commercial as well as strictly personal world

biverson — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:52:35 +0000

Todor continues with anecdote about Fiat getting community built around adding features to the car. Car owners post about vacations in their cars, their cars as steppingstones to social engagement.

The moderator of this session is Susan Mernit and she is keeping the session moving so that all speakers get time to talk and the audience gets to interact. Now Jeff Nolan, NewsGator, notes that today we don’t have to work within an established paradigm or “precedent” for how work with or on the web. “We have lowered the barriers to creating them (communities)” notes Jeff. Notes inviting bloggers to Sapphire conference was an example where there was no precedent, but no reason not to do this. Asked that bloggers allow response, but didn’t ask for edits. He has perhaps replaced his marketing team with the bloggers, who collectively have millions of page views. This is how he says you build communities of interest. You read endgaget, but you believe the comments, he says. NewsGator’s widgets for big media is about driving content out so that community can grow around it.

business, social world, We Media Miami 2008, wemedia 08 activist world, WeMedia08

Share This

Pitch It | Tomorrow’s best start-ups, Part 2

craigertiger — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:51:53 +0000

Pitch It #3 – A website that brings important information and sparks conversation around local schools.

Robert Park

Bringing laws to parents and providing a space to react to issues.

User case: A teacher was illegally posting grades publicly at the school. This issue was known by the parents and a problem in their minds. It wasn’t until the issue was brought up by a journalist that the parents had the legal ammo to go to the school administration and fix the problem.

Key questions from panel:

A great thing for a community to have. Why haven’t you considered the non-profit route?

Started as one, but not sure yet.

I like the use case scenario in your pitch. Those are important. Map out the experience with the use case.

What is the reason to use it everyday? Will it be one of my 10 bookmarks?

Pitch #4 – Debatepedia – Providing the Pros and Cons in a wiki

Brooks Lindsay started Debatepedia in 2006 while at Georgetown.

“Every great non-profit or business must solve a problem”

Problem: It takes way to long for citizens to discover/weigh the pros and cons on a given debate issue.

It takes 20 hours to compile an article due to mini-debates within a larger debate. How can we expect citizens to invest this much time.

There are currently 600 different debate topics on Debatepedia.

The business model is to sell this technology companies that will use it to internally reach conclusions in a well-organized and documented manner.

Key questions from panel:

This requires heavy weight participation. Have you considered light weight participation actions?

Discussion page offer light weight participation.

What does your solution add that’s better than what exists?

This is customizable and the point is to cut down on time wasted recycling arguments.

Pitch It #5 – Imagine Miami – Civic Networking

Corinna J. Moebius was inspired by the goal site 43 Things.

Connects people to purpose and place in Miami. Other sites focus on global change; Imagine Miami focuses on local change. Findability, accessibility and shareability or key to success.

Key questions from panel:

How do you plan on getting this out to the people?

Use Facebook to pull younger people into this site. Grass roots connectors will pull in other users.

Pitch It #6 – Publictivity

Jason Baptiste, CEO and founder

Problem: The current “Organize + Share”methods have problems. Publictivity allows users to do all their online actions with other users in one place.

Publictivity is not…

a collaboration suite

a Roll Your Own Database

an Online Office suite

Revenue:

Premium Hosted Licenses

Premium Support

Developer opportunities

Key questions for panel:

How do people know to use this? How does it spread?

Starts with a few people and spreads through contact lists.

*****

Out of the six pitches, the LaunchBox Digital award went to Corinna J. Moebius of Imagine Miami.

She made a comment on how collaboration is key and thanked her cousin (and fellow pitcher) Jonathan Hendler for his help and support.

Final thought: Although the ideas and concepts tossed out during the intense two hour session were brilliant, it was the passion and enthusiasm of the presenters that made the room exciting.

Note: Due to the 15 minute time limit for each pitch and the lack of materials available, there may be certain points and aspects of the pitches that were inevitability omitted from this post. I welcome and encourage all the presenters to post comments in order to fill in or explain where necessary.

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

How nonprofit journalism pays off

Nathalie Applewhite — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:47:44 +0000

The past several decades have been marked by two trends in journalism, neither of them conducive to an informed public or the furtherance of democracy. On the one hand there is the growing consolidation of media ownership and a precipitous drop in national and global reporting. On the other there is a fragmentation of the media creating a hyper-competitive landscape that drives the news market to deliver infotainment, soft news, and more ideologically defined, or ‘opinion’ media. Notions of ‘public trust,’ responsibility and the ‘fourth estate’ seem to increasingly fall to the realm of citizen journalists, bloggers and advocacy organizations. And yet, despite a few exceptions, many still depend on traditional news outlets as points of departure for their information. And in a world of algorithm determined headlines, popularity usually beats public interest and the information the public needs to make informed decisions too often gets lost. The bottom line: If commercial incentives are the driving force of information gathering and dissemination — be it traditional or new media — what’s in the public interest (and not just what the public is interested in) will likely be ignored and the American public will pay the price.

In this shifting landscape of today’s news media, nonprofit journalism has been gaining significant attention as a potential solution. In the past few months the Columbia Journalism Review and the American Journalism Review have each featured stories about the growing importance of foundation sponsored journalism. And it should come as no surprise. As Charles Lewis suggests in CJR’s “The Nonprofit Road,” nonprofits have long played a critical role in providing quality journalism to the American public. But as Carol Guensburg points out, foundation-sponsored journalism has both inherent benefits and risks: “Done right, the journalism-funder relationship benefits both parties as well as the public they aim to serve. It supplies important news resources, and it satisfies a grantmaker’s mission — maybe even bringing a touch of prestige. Done wrong, the association raises concerns about editorial objectivity and whether it has been compromised by a funder’s agenda.”

So what does getting it “right” look like?

One nonprofit that has asked this question is the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, which seeks not to replace traditional or new media, but to build on the existing strengths of both and fill in the gaps where needed. It’s not the only answer, but it’s a model that is already delivering a promising ‘Return on Investment.’ Founded just two years ago, the Center is forging a model of journalism dedicated to raising the standard of international reporting in the United States. The Center’s model combines quality reporting, comprehensive media dissemination and educational initiatives to raise awareness of critical global issues that have been largely ignored in the American media. We work across media platforms and embrace the promise of pro-am collaborations as reflected in our recent partnership with helium.com. By reaching out into schools we hope to inspire the next generation of news consumers to ask for better information and engage in the news gathering process more directly.

As a nonprofit, our goal is to strengthen the media system as a whole, not to create more competition. We bridge traditional and new media, working with organizations as established as The New York Times, The Washington Post and NPR and as current as YouTube, One World and Witness.

As a small, nimble organization built on principles of collaboration over competition and on long-term change over short-term fixes, we’re able to achieve significant impact without looking to monetary profit to measure our success. Pulitzer Center-supported reporting spanned more than 20 countries in 2007, including a 14-month investigation of factory working conditions in China, pioneering work on human rights abuses in Ethiopia, environmental challenges across the globe including Peru, Rwanda and Alaska, the HIV/AIDS crisis in the Caribbean, rehabilitation efforts with former child soldiers in Liberia and the U.S., and in-depth reporting that challenged official U.S. optimism on the “surge” in Iraq.

Jon Sawyer, the Pulitzer Center’s executive director, is at WeMedia this week actively seeking new partners who, like us, believe the benefit of quality information can not be measured in dollar signs.

For more about the Pulitzer Center see: “Funding for Foreign Forays,” by Carol Guensburg. AJR, February/March 2008

Or visit our website: www.pulitzercenter.org

Nathalie Applewhite, Associate Director

Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

nonprofit journalism, pulitzer center, We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Civil Discourse

SarahSchacht — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:40:38 +0000

Sponsored by Washington Post – newsweek Interactive

Location: Storer Auditorium at 4:15 pm

Session Chair: Hal Straus, Interactivity and Communities Editor, Washingtonpost.com

Robin Miller, Editor, Slashdot/SourceForge

Slashdot has a multilayered moderation system for ranking comments. “If you ever get into a content rating system, do *not* call it ‘karma’.” Slashdot moderators are selected at random, and these moderators can rank comments up or down. If you’ve posted a comment, you can’t moderate. To control for group-think, Slash-Dot has “meta-moderators” a small, selected, voluntary group of “super moderators.”

Must haves:

1. Users must be able to rate things up and down.

2. Should, below a certain threshold, should comments be visible?

3. Many users doing few moderations–spread the love.

Steve Arend, Vice President Digital media Services, CMP Technology

I saw opportunities to take “noise” away from what other people want. We are producing a virtual trade show, 2nd life, where you can go in and interact with those who create the products you’re interested in. We have had cases in 2nd life, where we’ve had semi-unanimous interruptions, where we allow interactions to happen, but with the knowledge I can literally throw them off the (2nd Life) island.

There’s noise from the sales side, the engineering side, and from consumers. In the virtual world, that’s the closest I’d seen to real life. Because you can interrupt the audio portion, just like in real life. (View video clip 1.)

Links:

http://life20.net http://howmachineswork.com

Mark Jones, Global Community Editor for Reuters

Question: What’s the worst that can happen?

We try and pull in the best of the rest of the web, what other sites are saying on various topics. Global Voices-Voices without Votes. We cover what major nations around the world are doing around elections, bringing in bloggers from around the world. For instance, you can see what global bloggers are saying about US elections. However, this skews content if the blogosphere is skewed all on its own.

How do you make it clear to users that there is a difference between blogger comments and stories, and Reuters itself? Our single biggest compliant from the public is on neutrality. We get these from users, and also our network of journalists. They feel a little hurt that we’re putting resources towards other’s work. But the last thing we want is for our journalists to feel “dissed.”

Handling comments….For an organization like Reuters, which is keen on neutrality, we have all sorts of problems with comments on blogs. We haven’t cracked the burden of moderation back to the audience. I naively thought, when I started editor’s started blogs, that when we were attacked, that our supporters would ride in and save us–and they did the first few times. But then, there turned to be some mob-rule and our cheerleaders sort of got scared away.

Finally, I really want to get the two sides–journalists and commenters–to enrich the discussion. But until we have a civil discourse, the journalists just aren’t going to engage.

www.blogs.reuters.com

Chris Tolles, CEO, Topix

The real promise of the internet is interactivity. A system that gets more people engaged (even if there are inappropriate comments), is better than a system than doesn’t get people engaged. We’re trying to get the highest number of people engaged. We have over 400,000 topics, all across the globe.

When the cartoons about the Prophet Mohamed appeared on the net, we got over 2,000 comments, when we geo-located where these comments were coming from, we found most of the comments were coming from Scandinavia and the Middle East. Over time, middle ground developed. “We look at it as, are we getting an increasing amount of people, and it’s a Darwinian product, and the one that has the most people wins”.

http://blog.topix.com

General Conversation

About journalists interacting with and within the comments:

“They’re highly skeptical about this. Getting bothered with questions from users, but they’re kinda intrigued by it. They see their job as to talk to policy makers and heads of companies.” -Mark Jones

“The San Francisco Chronicle, uses the public as a club to make a point and support what they’re saying–to use it against the people who are against them. …I think a year or two from now, I will bet you a lot of money, that journalists will take comments and publish them in their stories. ” -Chris Tolles

“At the Post, we have the need to be objective, and we’ve had a lot of our opinion writers who have gotten into the ring with our commenters. For one thing, they worry about this because they’re ‘working without a net.’ -Where they’re not editorialized.” -Hal Straus

Interaction from the audience (not all who participated, but the closest person to me that I could get info from):

Jean-Baptiste, with Le Liberation.fr, where there is a web-comment page within the hardcopy newspaper. These comments are edited and selected before being printed. http://liberation.fr/actualite/media/2293555.fr.php

Other sites mentioned as having interesting interactivity features:

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/thebigblog/

PS Video of this event will be posted to this blog today, it was not available immediately.

community, innovation, journalism, media, newspapers, reuters, robin miller, slashdot, slash dot, washington post, We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Talking unconference at one that isn’t structured that way

biverson — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:40:22 +0000

An audience member noted that the online back channels are valuable. The big-screen has the Weme twitter posts, that is one kind of back-channel. Someone noted that back channels can become snarky and degenerate.

Someone else noted that the unconference needs direction that is subtle or at least different than we are often used to. The background for interaction is novel to some people, and seems to be popular. John Bell tells an anecdote about advertisers who said they go to awards events, not conferences.

Tomorrow will be an example of unconference and Kaliya claims “the agenda will be set by lunch.” So if you are here be sure to check it out.

John Todor from The Whetstone Edge says biz has moved from focus on the “selling process” to our new world where the customers are forcing a focus on the “buying process.” He talks about the B2B and B2C worlds and that the shift is taking place there. This is true in the hiring market today. Recruiters have the resumé, but they check out the value that the job applicant adds to his or her resume through online interactions and postings.

We Media Miami 2008

Share This

Social World Panel

biverson — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:35:24 +0000

This is a good panel but it has been a long day. After this panel, the Mojito in the Grove session.

Dean Isaac Prilleltensky, Dean UM School of Education starts with an anecdote about women in Kerala, India, and a sense of well-being that began long ago, and resulted literacy as high as a developed nation, 100 years after women organized for children’s well-being.

Elisa Camahort Page, co-founder of Blogher begins with the dearth of women in blogging which turned out to a misapprehension by a (male) blogger about women in the blogosphere. This spurred the first blogher conference. Blogher has expanded to adnetworks, more conferences and a social network. “To me, community is a circle” you must respond to community, according to Elisa. Community is “constantly a circle.”

Kaliya Hamlin, Founder of Unconference.net says “no one on a mailing list dictates what anyone else says.” So there is a challenge to keep that live and relevant discussion when you bring people together live and in person. Topic people are passionate about it, getting live people talking and then focus on documentation of what discourse went on in-person. When you look at the sites after the conferences, you read the documentation differently than you did before. Face-to-face presents wider bandwidth than listservs or even face-to-face conferences where committees decide the agenda in advance.

common good, community, social world, We Media Miami, We Media Miami 2008

Share This

WeMedia 2008 Activist World Forum

jcschuster — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:34:11 +0000

Activist world forum:

Innovative applications of media emerge in every sector of life. It’s not just about blogs,Facebook and You Tube.

Session Chair:

Suzanne Turner, CEO of Turner Strategies was the session chairand she summarized the forum as a way of making changes using innovative tools that we have.

The forum was composed of four people who presented their projects.

Joan Peckolick, founder and executive director of Selfchec.org disclosed that she just turned 60 and is in a constant war against chronic diseases and cancer as the real enemies nowadays instead of Iraq. She explains that she gave up her career to continue fighting as she does not want to pass it to next generation. She thought that the new generation with new media is capable of changing things and she asked help for introducing Selfchec as a way of communication for the public on healthcare.

Deron Triff, CEO of Changents.com

Triff explained the concept of www.changents.com. as a reflection of the young people’s trends. “We want to be a storytelling platform for younger people who take challenges of social issues around world,” said Triff. He continued by saying that it was a way for people to tell their stories with edge and attitude.

The idea of the site is about the individual. Members tell stories and create network of fans called “superfans.’ People join virtual team and become backers. Triff gave the example of Brad Corrigan, a member who fights to “trash poverty in Nicaraguan landfill.” People who wanted to help him did so by such actions as sending medications, or offering translation services.

The website offers tools to build backers and connect people personally. Each individual produce stories and the backers follow them. Riff explained the development of the ripple concept: The chain reaction started after a story. Everyone in the ripple can see who responded to actions taken.

The website is an alternative for people who want direct relationships, as they feel cynical and doubtful about non profits organization and don’t want to write up a check and just donate without having deeper knowledge and connection to the issue.

Civic Space: James Carlson Executive Director of Bucketworks

The website Bucketworks is based on the concept of solidarity and the sense of community in a village. For example when a fire hits a village, people used to pass buckets of water between the well and the fire. Carlson explains that nowadays that chain is broken as people cannot find their place in it.

Bucketworks was described by Carlson as a “health club for the green and a local place with global strategies that connect people to make the whole world grow.”

Carlson explains that some people are afraid to share their values. Bucketworks’s facility is located in Milwaukee between the wealthy communities and the poor ones. It is a diverse community of members.

Bucketworks created ways of trading with each other. It has been opened for five years, has 700 members, organized film festival, art exhibits , performances, and galleries.

Carlson encouraged people to do the same in their community by offering tools on the website about the project that are meant to be “copied and pasted in your own community.’

The atmosphere at Bucketworks was described as fun and as a place of shared knowledge where everyone learned from another. Younger generation will teach older one how to use technology for example. “It has to be fun otherwise people won’t join it,” said Carlson.

Matisse Bustos Hawkes, Communication and Outreach. Witness

www.witness.org on human rights was well known among the people in the audience. Hawkes chose to concentrate on the new technology available to the public. The HUB has been launched in December and is still in the beta stage. It is a platform for everyone anywhere to upload videos, still messages and audios about human rights.

Hawkes described the Hub’s mission as “trying to build community globally.” The site is in three languages although it is not fully an open space. Once a member, you can upload as much videos as possible. The idea is less about being a You Tube for human right but to bring actions by using media as a catalyst. Hawkes hopes to bring people online first and feel compelled to take action afterwards.

The site also provides training resources on how to create media for advocacy.

We Media Miami 2008, wemedia 08 activist world

Share This

Liveblog: News World, Traditions and transformation

Travis Smith — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:17:47 +0000

Here we are, about to start “News World | Traditions and Transformation” — what fun!

Description: “Traditional (legacy) news organizations have no choice but to continue to change in order to respond to the growth of aggregators and other WeMedia players. Learn how leaders in the field are tackling editorial, business and management challenges in the culture of empowered content creatives.”

Carin Dessauer (senior fellow, iFOCOS) is leading this group, right to left:

Jennifer Sizemore, Executive Editor, MSNBC.com
Neil Budde, former VP and Editor-in-Chief, Yahoo! News
Kinsey Wilson, Executive Editor, USAToday and USAToday.com
Maria Thomas, SVP, National Public Radio

5:18 Kick off question: What’s each panelists’ definition of success? What’s the model for success?

Carin: 66% of Americans think journalists are out of touch, but 70% say journalism is important to their lives (stat from an earlier session today). How does that shade your yet-to-be-given answer?

Jennifer: There are many different models, not just one. We need to learn to include our readers, to learn from them, to get them talking to each other and to us (the media). Tear down the walled garden. We’re taking baby steps.

Jennifer: At the risk of sounding shrill, I think we need to continue to focus on quality excellent journalism. We can allow the community to talk to itself and yet we need to invest in journalism. Also, we need to figure out the model for advertising after display advertising: partnership, search ads, etc. Google does search ads; can we get a piece of that pie?

Jennifer: We need to focus on emerging platforms other than the Web site. If we focus only on the Web site, we lose opportunities that are coming up quickly.

Neil: The measure of success in the next few years will be continuing to innovate, producing much more interesting products.

Kinsey: We can’t escape the economic results of the digital revolution. At the same time that the newspapers are shrinking, we’re being asked to grow and produce the future successes. You can succeed inside the organization, or outside. He stresses three things:
* Creation of original (great) content
* Social media (that bullet point flew by quick)
* Attracting and holding audience (aggregating audience)

Google seems to be attracting people, but isn’t doing the content. We need to learn from them.

Maria: Going last means you get to agree with everyone, but she’s going to try a different tack given that she works for a non-profit (NPR). She says they need to change from being a B2B (they serve their member stations) radio model, to being a multi-platform publisher. And they need to do even more: help radio itself in America evolve.

Carin: Kinsey, Can you give us an example of how adding citizen journalism advanced a story?

Kinsey: We’ve often been at the forefront of multimedia storytelling, but there’s an endless amount of time you can put into any given story. He looked at stats at the month of January, and found this: 2 things produced 66% of all the traffic on the site. One was November’s Candidate Match Game, and the other was the poll tracker, tracking all the polls of the presidential campaign to date. So you can work all you want on things, and some will catch on and some won’t.

Carin: What about the pharmaceutical company story about error rates on being given incorrect prescriptions?

Kinsey: On a story like that, we found that the comments are often very rich and detailed. Even though they are pseudo-named, they still have a strong ring of veracity, and adds something to the story you can’t get form traditional reporting means.

Carin: That really added editorially?

Kinsey: Yes, pharmacists who wouldn’t speak on the record about the story would post anonymously in the comments and though that has less of an authority, they added value.

5:30: Neil: We did some research in the last year about the behavior of users when they come to the site and land first of all on a story page. Many people now get to a site that way. We looked at what people did on that page. When they come into the front page first, they are news junkies. When they come directly from the front page of Yahoo, they are less committed. Entertainment stories you click on photos, political stories you click on related stories. So if you feature things in different ways on different pages, you get a chance to modify behavior. John Battelle’s site actually recognizes if you come from Google, and places a big box on that page to help you find what you want.

Jennifer: You can tell a story in all sorts of ways but just because you can be all creative, doesn’t mean you should. Example: We have a year-long series called “Gut-check America” — they tell us story ideas, and vote them up and down, and then we dispatch a reporter to cover that. Sometimes we do live Q&As, sometimes we do just video, or just text. One of her biggest peeves: video for the sake of video, which just wastes time.

Carin: Moving onto workflow issues: NPR is a hybrid model — what works there, what doesn’t? What about the Knight Foundation partnership?

Maria: The challenge of becoming a multimedia company is tough — we’re not a single publication, we’re a collection of programs: news, music, entertainment (Car Talk, etc.) So what position are we trying to occupy in the much more competitive online space. What purpose are we trying to serve in audience’s lives? Mission: “educate inform entertain” — carefully chosen.

Maria: There was a mentality in her particular role that her group exists to serve the rest of the company, and that’s changing now that they’re also trying to serve the audience directly, not just the shows themselves. The first place this change is occuring is in the news arena. There’s a lot of training going on, thanks to a $1.5 million grant from the Knight Foundation. USC and UC Berkeley are working on that. They’re bringing trainers into NPR to train groups of 12. It’s an enormous undertaking.

Carin: Kinsey, how is the convergence of YOUR operation going?

Kinsey: I gotta be a little envious of the $1.5 million training grant. There’s also some hiring that goes on back and forth in the Washington DC area. The way USAToday has approached it, is they’ve formally merged the newsroom 2 years ago, and are continuing to merge them together in the way they’d be if it was built that way from scratch.

There are two principal ways: 1) separate content and production into different groups. Devote some to breaking and some to enterprise. Devote some to print and some to Web.
2) The other way is to assign small teams: a journalist, a copy editor, a blogger, a producer (sometimes not all those people).

The other thing they’ve done is take the design group which was vertical and removed, and flatten that and “embed” them into various sections so they can be part of the process from an earlier stage.

Question from the audience? Nope, gotta hold that until later.

5:45: Jennifer: They have no choice to be separate from the channel: they’re a totally separate in space (Seattle vs NJ), and in corporate structure. The new boss of NBC news (name escaped me) has really tried to make that relationship get closer. For Virginia Tech, for instance, they sent a blog reporter, as well as a cameraman and reporter. And that worked really well.

It doesn’t always work: for instance, today, MSNBC the site used a CNN photo to illustrate a story of the MSNBC channel Democratic debate.

Neil: To replace the revenue that comes in from newspapers, with the revenue from banner ads, it isn’t there yet. How do you get it there? Second, how do you get the value of each page view to be higher? There was a project at Yahoo to offer higher value targeted ads on pages with contextual, focused ads. Get the right message in front of the right person at the right time. This helps explain Microsoft’s interest in Yahoo — they want the ad platform.

Neil has been working to get local news sites to adopt Yahoo technology, and in exchange drive traffic to them, in an attempt to create a higher value ad network.

Neil: Do high value watch sellers really want to be at the front of the paper in the International News section? Probably not — they just want to prestige and eyeballs. That model is completely blown up online.

Maria: 26 million weekly listening audience, but we’ve underestimated how hard it is to convert a listener to an online visitor:
Listening: intimate, passive, geographically based, time-based
Online: opposite of those things
How does brand NPR live in a visual, active, directed environment? Good question.
The web site draws a lot of “earballs” — they track stats called “media requests” and “podcast downloads” and use that to see how they’re succeeding.

Carin: Does MSNBC have the stickiness of other sites?

Jennifer: You’re right, page views don’t seem to make us sticky. 50% of our users come through MSNBC.com, and come and then leave right away. We know that, and we can cater to that audience who aren’t expecting a lingering browsing experience.

We all want page views, as the stat that matters, to go away. But it won’t — that’s what advertisers want. Most metrics are marketing metrics so you can say you’re #1 in this or that. The REAL measure will be Time on Site. We aren’t there yet, but we like the idea of tracking just how much people hang around.

6:00: Question: 4 Kinsey from Education week. Does your newsroom folks occupy the same space or different?

Kinsey: Used to be Web was separate from print. Now, web editorial is disbursed into the newsroom, and is separate from the rest of the Web team [advertising and tech, perhaps?]

Question: 4 Kinsey from guy who didn’t identify himself: Two features on your site attracted the most traffic, and those features were both “evergreen” — is there a danger that you’d focus on evergreen features over breaking news now?

Kinsey: They’re not exactly evergreen — one doesn’t change much, but is relevant now, not forever. The other actually does update over time, so is featuring the freshest data.

Question: McArthur Foundation: Do any of you have a secret plan for rescuing user comments. Large sites have lower quality comments, don’t you think?

Neil: We took comments off because they weren’t generating a lot of traffic, nor a lot of revenue. One person said she was so mad she was gong to cancel all 8 of her Yahoo accounts. We haven’t yet gone back to adding them, but at some point the plan is to. Rating comments (up or down) is one way to handle it. Fixing your identity to one person, with a reputation, is another way. When people came in from the front page from yahoo, comment quality went down. People who came in through new section pages made better comments.

Kinsey: It’s not about giving people a place to sound off. It’s about building a network. And you can wait for the tools to be perfect, or you can step in now, at some risk, and learn. Remember that only 10% will actually participate, and they need to produce value for the other 90%.

Jennifer: We recently bought Newsvine.com and their smart technology should help.

Question: Real Girls Media (Divine Caroline): What are your syndication plans for small publishers’ content?

Maria: We don’t see ourselves in the same league as MSNBC and Yahoo. Our content lends itself very well to syndication. We have a saying: “The story is the atom” as opposed to the program. Programs might have beginnings, middles and ends and their producers like that. But from the digital media perspective, it’s about the story, and they might re-present a set of stories for other media and other products. Like movie reviews. Or books. There’s no one programs. But there are a lot of stories.

Question: Creditcards.com: How do you deal with the size and dynamics shift to a digital newsroom?

Kinsey: We had 75 people in the digital space, now we have 465 (the whole newsroom) (the numbers might not be exactly what Kinsey said). Increasingly, all reporters will be digital. Will that number 465 hold? We’ll see if the model will support that.

Jennifer: To the extent that we’ll (the industry) continue to be doing journalism, we’ll be doing it in the online space.
6:15: That’s all, let’s go for drinks in the courtyard.

aggregators, change, media, news, We Media Miami 2008, wemedia

Share This

Innovation World | Knight News Challenge

Jessica Reyes — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:17:35 +0000

$25 million (Knight News Challenge) invested in innovative approaches to journalism – the result: strengthened local communities. This is the goal of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.This is Innovation world. Eric Newton starts of the conversation. He begins with how the Knight Foundation got started, in newspapers and now how the foundation giving back to the community.For the challenge the foundation was looking for digital innovation (cell phone, computer…), news and information (non-fiction), a way to inform geographic community, and open source (shared with people). Some of the big winners last year were MIT, EveryBlock, MTV and Open-Source Community News. For a complete list of the winners visit: http://www.newschallenge.org/winners.html

Winner: Nora Paul, Playing the News – (Director, Institute for New Media Studies, University of Minnesota) “Playing the News is a news simulation environment which lets citizens play through a complex, evolving news story through interaction with the newsmakers.”

Top 11 tips to apply for a grant:

1.       Do it

2.       Apply early – Apply often

3.       Keep grant’s goals in mind

4.       Practice project pitches

5.       Seek feedback

6.       Be realistic

7.       Anticipate unanticipated delays

8.       Invite different ideas (what is this project going to look like?)

9.       Turn competition into collaboration (example of a new technology: PeaceMaker – A Video Game to Promote Peace)

10.   Build in assessment

11.   Share the journey

Winner: Amy Gahran, Content Strategist and Independent Journalist. Amy started out as a journalist…13 years ago she moved to Boulder, Colorado and created (with Adam Glenn) a “citizen/professional journalism project using innovative web tools and citizen journalism practices to track Boulder, Colo.’s, implementation of a carbon tax.” Her blog can be found at: http://www.contentious.com/

Her thoughts on applying for the Knight News Challenge:

Not sure your idea can work? Good!

Don’t over-think your initial application.

There’s a learning curve with the grant world.

Have a plan A, B, C, and D — and budget for ALL of them.

Be honest with yourself.

Grants, Knight Foundation, Knight News Challenge, We Media Miami 2008, We Meida 2008

Share This