links for 2009-03-13
March 13, 2009 in industry news
-
Type geekery.
You are browsing the archive for 2009 March.
Mogulus live streaming tips
March 12, 2009 in video
Tuesday night I live streamed my first large-scale event using free, browser-based software from Mogulus. A few things I learned:
Do as much advanced preparation as possible. If you’re covering an event (concert, debate, forum, meeting), contact audio technicians at the venue and find out what kind of audio setup they have. Find out if it’s possible to plug into the PA system and find out if there are any extra cables/cords you’ll need to rent or buy before arriving. Try to avoid using the microphone on your camera. Audio is the most important part of your stream and the camera will likely give you echoey feedback. Set up a time to actually visit the venue and ask yourself:
- Do you get a good wireless connection? (If not, is there any way to access ethernet?)
- What are the acoustics like?
- Where will you plug into the audio?
- Where is the best spot to set up your camera(s)?
- Where are the electrical outlets?
- How long of a cord do you need (extension cables?)
- Who are the technicians? Meet them.
Bring a backup for everything. I had two cameras and two laptops because I planned to have one camera pointed at the stage and the other at the audience so I could switch back and forth without awkward panning. One camera and laptop stopped working though. Were it not for my backup, I would not have been able to continue streaming. Take extra batteries for your equipment and make sure your laptop is fully charged.
Show up early. Even after doing advanced preparation, show up an hour early (at least the first time you live stream) the day of your event to make sure everything is working properly. Just because your computer recognizes your camera once doesn’t mean it will happen again. Technology is unpredictable sometimes. Get the stream set up and test it out to make sure the audio is working
Work in teams. When things fail (which they will your first time, if you’re anything like me), it’s a lot easier to endure with more than one brain working on the problem. Teams are great for using multiple cameras (which Mogulus allows you to do) and for having a few moderators focusing solely on the chat. We had 2-3 chat moderators, a live-Twitterer, a reporter taking notes, a photographer, and someone managing the video (we were covering a town-hall style meeting with students and administrators regarding fee increases). Effective multimedia is not a one-man game.
Why Mogulus? For our situation, it was the best option (the other major live stream option is Ustream). If we hadn’t encountered technical difficulties, we would have ideally been switching between the two separate cameras– a feature unique to Mogulus. MasterNewMedia.org has a great, in-depth guide that can help you decide if Mogulus or Ustream is best. Both have ridiculously simple back ends that make streaming easy.
I used Mogulus for the following features that Ustream doesn’t have:
- Ability to use multiple cameras
- Ability to que up pre-recorded video (which was very useful during the first half hour of technical
difficultiesfailure) - Professional-looking overlay options for lower thirds and a rolling ticker
Train everyone. After the first team figures out all the kinks of live streaming, let them bring back their experience to the newsroom. Teach as much of your staff as possible how to do it. The more the merrier. Good luck!
links for 2009-03-11
March 11, 2009 in industry news
-
From the Berkman Center (via @NiemanLab on Twitter) – a way to visualize the flow of news coverage.
-
Just going to try this out myself. Might be helpful in training for multimedia
-
Not sure that I find any of these more appealing than the banner ad.
#CollegeJourn wrap-up: Money and strikes
March 10, 2009 in industry news
For those of you who couldn’t make it to Sunday’s #collegejourn chat, this is how it went down (or read the full transcript):
Hour one: College newspapers face weak ad revenue. Solutions?
USA Today wrote an article about the “all-too-real-world-lesson” that college newspaper revenue decline is finally catching up with the professional world (although, it should be noted, Bryan Murley wrote a thorough post about this very topic long before USA Today).
Since the start of the current school year, daily newspapers at schools including Syracuse University, New York University, the University of California-Berkeley, Ball State and Boston University have cut one edition a week — usually Friday’s — because of weak advertising.
Questions posed to the chat: How is your school doing? How do we adjust?
Anthony Pesce of the Daily Bruin said: We’ve had drastic decreases in our travel budgets, staff stipend budget, equipment budget, etc over the past few years
Will Sommer: My paper isn’t independent, and we never had much of a budget to start with, so we’re a lot better off than independent papers. That said, our ads are really down–so much so that our printer’s broken and we can’t afford a replacement
Hour one subtopic: iPhones
The advantage college publications have over the professional market is that students still pick up a paper out of convenience. But iPhones are changing that. Quickly.
The logical next step for newspapers (both college and professional) is to make money off effective iPhone applications. They key to a successful iPhone app is that it won’t merely repurpose web content using RSS feeds, but provide extra value.
Anthony Pesce said his staff is working on an iPhone app that would include location-specific content, classifieds, and other content like professor reviews, although it’s still a way into the future.
Hour two: Why the Oregon Daily Emerald went on strike
The news staff of University of Oregon’s student newspaper went on strike March 4 after alum Steven A. Smith was hired to draft a strategic plan for the publication — including creation of a supervisory “publisher†position, which the staff believed would pressure editors into waiving control of the paper.
Questions posed to the chat: What would you do in the same situation? What can we learn from the strike?
Daniel Bachhuber wrote a post in response to the strike and — unlike the dozens of other newspapers who signed a letter in favor of the Emerald’s editorial independence — he said the staff’s actions were unwarranted and hindered the paper’s ability to reinvent itself.
Other thoughts about the strike:
- Strikes are irrelevant and unnecessary with the ease of publishing thanks to the Internet.
- Strikes are counter productive; students don’t need to do a “strike” anymore, but route around the “official” outlet (i.e. start a blog that administrators can’t control)
- It’s hard to judge the situation without knowing the personality conflicts going on behind the scenes
The chat takes place among educators, professionals and students every Sunday 5-8 p.m. PST at collegejourn.com. If you have topic ideas for next week, direct message Suzanne Yada at twitter.com/suzanneyada.
Look, ma, no scrolling!
March 8, 2009 in Conferences, industry news
 Warning/Update: Parts of the site are NSFW (not safe for work) for (some) North American classroom because some of the images and videos follow Eastern european sensibilities regarding nudity and sex. (via Robb Montgomery)
From the session today at Newstrain, 24sata, a Syrian Croatian news site that features a single-screen design. It’s an interesting concept, which requires short bits of text and lots of photos. Quite the change from typical U.S. news sites.
The downside? It’s built with HTML tables. Of course, there’s no way you’d be able to do this type of site on College Publisher because of the ad spots.
Thoughts?
links for 2009-03-06
March 6, 2009 in industry news
-
Look at what the high schools are doing. Nice work, overall.
On twitter & the media
March 5, 2009 in Academics, College Media, Community, General Media, industry news, Twitter
For little over a year I have been interested in this thing I’m sure many of you have heard about called twitter. I started off curious how this, then relatively new, social media tool might be used by college media. It wasn’t until I threw caution to the wind and started tweeting did I really understand why people were using twitter. I used twitter for myself, not the paper or any attempt to pretend I was a media organization. While I like twitter, I still see many media and businesses not using it how I, a user, would like it to be used.
I spent the past few months talking to other twitter users, attended a few tweetups and along with my own preferences have compiled a list of things media organizations and companies should do, and not do when using twitter.
1. Do NOT use twitter as an RSS feed! I removed the NYT and both my local papers because all they did was push out headlines to their stories. Don’t know why but this really bugs me as a twitter user. If all you are doing is pushing your stories you are not using twitter right.
2. Do NOT push out a ton of updates at one time. I greatly dislike getting up in the morning or after a long day coming home to find my twitter feed filled up with a ton of updates from one media or business. I don’t mind it from my friends, they aren’t selling me something or just trying to get my eyeballs on their site. When a media/business does this it comes across as pure advertising. Personally, I think 2-4 GOOD updates a day works for me, though nothing is wrong with just one a day either! It is all about finding balance.
UWire 100 ’09 – nominations now
March 4, 2009 in College Media News, hope for the future
Last year, we here at ICM were proud to showcase seven of the UWire 100, seven who had been participating in the Innovation in College Media web site, and whose nominations we supported.
The UWire 100 is back again this year, and they’re looking for top college journalists. Here’s the nomination form. Deadline is March 10, so don’t delay!
This year, I could probably name many more to nominate (several from Twitter or Collegejourn.com). Who do you think is a “top 100″college journalist this year? If you asked me (which they didn’t), that journalist had better have some mad multi-platform skills.
Daily Emerald editorial staff goes on strike
March 4, 2009 in College Media News, industry news
Effective 6 a.m. March 4, the news staff of University of Oregon’s student newspaper is on strike in attempt to preserve the integrity, independence and future of the Daily Emerald.
The Emerald’s protest comes after Steven A. Smith, an alum and former editor in chief of The Spokesman Review, was hired to draft a strategic plan for the publication — including creation of a supervisory “publisher” position, which the staff believes will pressure editors into waiving control of the paper:
The editors felt that the Emerald cannot afford the salary Smith proposed, and were extremely concerned that allowing Smith to work as an adjunct instructor at the journalism school while serving as publisher was an obvious conflict of interest, for multiple reasons.
An article written by the editor in chief and managing editor stated, “We need someone who has a tangible plan to start making money.”
The staff wants the following four demands met in order to “preserve student control and editorial independence” of the publication:
1. Immediately rescind the offer to Steven A. Smith to serve as interim publisher April 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010. (Update: Smith resigned, read his blog post here).
2. Conduct a nationwide search for a publisher, as originally voted at the Feb. 10 board meeting.
3. Stipulate in the chosen publisher’s contract that he or she shall not be employed in any capacity by the University, including at the School of Journalism and Communication.
4. Stipulate in the chosen publisher’s contract that he or she shall not have immediate supervisory control over the editor; rather, the publisher and student editor shall remain equals in the organization, as the general manager and student editor currently are.
The full article and text of the speech the editors presented to the Board of Directors is here.
Twitter updates related to the strike (#ODEstrike) are here.
The Daily Emerald started a staff strike blog and a Facebook page for the cause.
Student views on modernizing j-education
March 3, 2009 in video
Students at the 2009 Associated Collegiate Press Conference in San Diego, Calif. discuss ideas on revamping journalism education in the 21st century.
