Innovation in College Media

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GoTriadU launches to tie schools together

9:41 am in College Media News, industry news

gotriadu

Slight Update: Here’s John Robinson’s original post announcing GoTriadU.

The Greensboro News & Record has launched GoTriadU as a potential information hub for the Greensboro area colleges. The effort bears a few similarities to BigLickU, the Roanoke Times’ ill-fated effort to tie together schools in the Blacksburg area (see our coverage here), with a couple of differences. The Greensboro effort isn’t quite so ambitious in its beginning stages, and they don’t seem to be competing with Facebook in the social networking arena.

I e-mailed editor John Robinson to ask about the initiative and he forwarded my e-mail to Kathy Lambeth, new ventures director for the N&R. Below the fold is her detailed response to my query.

Read the rest of this entry →

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links for 2008-10-16

11:04 am in industry news

  • Innovation: Ten (small) things you can do right now to reinvent your newsroom
    Chris O'Brien has some great tips for you to innovate your newsroom immediately.
    (tags: innovation collegemedia)
  • Journalistopia » Multimedia job openings in Orlando, Fort Lauderdale
    Working with Danny Sanchez in Orlando.
    (tags: jobs multimedia journalism)
  • "goTriadU"
    The Greensboro News & Record is looking to build "a network among the students of eight of the colleges and universities around here," says John Robinson. I'm hoping to get some further information about this interesting development with shades of BigLickU.
    (tags: socialnetworking college)
  • Snapshots from the future of online student newsq
    Ryan Sholin grapples with the frontiers of student news online and notes a couple of new projects that are progressing.
    (tags: collegemedia onlinejournalism collegepublisher cms)
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BigLickU no more?

7:32 pm in College Media News, industry news

big lickLast spring, readers may recall the huge coverage we gave to a push by the Roanoke Times to create a college social media site named BigLickU. You can see all of that coverage here.

Well, it appears that BigLickU has been shuttered. If you go to BigLickU.com, you are redirected to the Roanoke.com main web page. Even though “Big Lick University” is still listed at the bottom of the home page under “Online Features,” clicking the link takes you back to … the home page!

A search of the site shows no announcement that the BLU experiment was ending, but Chris Winston, the original editor at BLU was moved to the business section last year, and the effort moved back to the main Roanoke office, and things had been quiet on that front for a while.

Perhaps BLU is coming back in the fall. I’ll keep my eyes peeled. Meanwhile, I’m contacting roanoke.com to see what’s up. If I hear back, I’ll let you know.

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It had to happen: two more sites aimed at college crowd

12:49 pm in Gannett, industry news, Multimedia views

the loopBeing out of the loop means I’ve missed the launch of two college-targeted social networking sites by major newspaper organizations.

Rachele Kanigel mentioned the two sites in the  Student Newspaper Survival weblog: Another invasion on college media turf. Now there are three of these experiments, and BigLickU looks like a grandparent, age-wise, since it’s been up and running since March.

The Loop is aimed at college students in Rochester and surrounding areas. It’s run by a Gannett paper. According to the Democrat and Chronicle story:

The Loop, a partnership of the Democrat and Chronicle and seven area colleges, formally debuts today on the Web at RocLoop.com. The site is largely staffed by students at those colleges.

Besides the newspaper, the partners are the State University Colleges at Brockport and Geneseo, St. John Fisher, Nazareth, Roberts Wesleyan, Rochester Institute of Technology and Monroe Community College, and there are plans to expand to others.

Swocol tries to serve the area around Dayton, Ohio. From the Dayton Daily News story:

swocol

On Wednesday, Cox Ohio Publishing launched Swocol.com — a Web site targeting the area’s nearly 70,000 college students enrolled at the University of Dayton, Wright State University, Sinclair Community College and Miami University in Oxford.

Both sites have a little bit different models for content production. Rachele mentioned that the sites are trying to steal readers from college media organizations. That’s a given. But I’m more concerned about what else they are trying to take: your writers.

If I were a college media adviser, I’d be more worried about The Loop, which – according to the D&C story – will rely heavily on college students to produce content – even content for class credit.

Think about it: A professional daily newspaper partnering with colleges to produce a product using student workers. If that’s not a perfect storm of trouble brewing for campus media, I can’t imagine what is. Competition for ad dollars, competition for student workers, and competition for eyeballs/readers. And the content can be as college-specific as your student media.

Check out our previous coverage of BigLickU. On Jan. 30, when I first wrote about this, I said college media should ramp up their online presence’s in anticipation of such moves by big media companies. That advice becomes more urgent as we enter a new semester.

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Roanoke.com’s BigLickU push

8:59 am in industry news, Multimedia views, Websites

big lick

A couple of weeks ago, I was interviewed by Ray Reed of the Roanoke Times about the company’s BigLickU college social networking site. Regular readers know we’ve covered the site extensively in the past – see all coverage here. Reed’s story marks the official “launch” of the site with a huge marketing push by the Times to get students to sign up for the site. Read Reed’s story here: Look out MySpace: New site in town.

As mentioned in previous articles, college media advisers should follow this story closely, because if Roanoke is successful, you can bet there will be other commercial efforts in a similar vein that would affect the bottom line of college media outlets.

Will they be successful? The jury will be out for a while. Likewise, it will be difficult to tell in the short term whether the added competition will greatly impact Va. Tech’s self-supporting student media outlets.

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Things you need to understand about the future of college media

3:43 pm in blogging, Multimedia views

Ryan Sholin offers a great list of things journalists need to understand about the future. See here: 10 obvious things about the future of newspapers you need to get. I’d suggest you read the whole thing, and then come back.

As is my wont, I’m going to add a few college media-specific comments to Ryan’s list – and take off some things that aren’t as applicable to your situation. These are things we as advisers and student journalists should take heed of (Ryan’s original comments are in italics. My additions are in bold).

  1. “Reporters need to do more than write. The new world calls for a new skillset, and you and Mr. Notebook need to make some new friends, like Mr. Microphone and Mr. Point & Shoot.” You need to have digital audio recorders and digital cameras available for your reporters. Do you hear me? Now. Your photojournalists need to be shooting audio and video. Don’t believe me, ask the folks at the NPPA. Ask Hunter Wilson. I’m not alone in this sentiment.
  2. J-schools can either play a critical role in training the next generation of journalists, or they can fade into irrelevancy. Teach multimedia, interactivity and data, or watch your students become frustrated and puzzled as they try to get jobs with five clips and a smile. I’m not going to say this about j-schools. I’m pointing the finger at college media outlets. Let me go on record as saying that the most crucial training I received as a college mass comm. major was during my time at the University Press at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world. I don’t want to ever see college media lose their position as the place to go for practical training to prepare for a future career in journalism. But if you’re not preparing students for a new media future, you’re losing it fast – if you haven’t lost it already.
  3. You ignore new delivery systems at your own peril. RSS, SMS, iPhone, e-paper, Blackberry, widgets, podcasts, vlogs, Facebook, Twitter — these aren’t the competition, these are your new carriers. Learn how to deliver your content across every new technology that comes into view on the horizon, and be there when new devices go into mass production. This is an area where college media needs to focus quickly. I’ve surveyed college media, and a lot of folks don’t take mobile delivery seriously yet. While it may not be the preferred method for your college media outlet, get this through your head: you’re not just training students for the here and now. Doug Fisher says he’s training students to write 140 word stories for mobile content. Are you?
  4. Nobody is going to weep if college media doesn’t meet this need. Yes. You heard me right. Professional newspapers have been angling for college audiences for years. The entry of Biglicku.com into the social media space just shows that they are still there. The difference with new media is access. Big papers don’t need a readership program, or racks on campus, to steal your readers. And many j-schools don’t care either. They have their own new media training efforts going. They don’t need you.
  5. This is not rocket science. The biggest obstacle to embracing a new media means of storytelling is your own obstinance. There. I’ve said it. You can do this. It doesn’t take a lifetime of learning Flash, or whiz-kid programmers (although that can definitely help). It does take a desire to look at the web as a first platform for storytelling.
  6. Think beyond your brand. The college newspaper has a storied history. Nobody wants to diminish that. But would it hurt you to look beyond your brand – the Daily Whatchamacallit – and explore some other options. Local stories for a local audience, pushed outside the brand, is something that will benefit you long term. Think bakotopia. Think lawrence.com. Those are not things that are outside of the ability of college media organizations to attempt. Just try it. Be bold. Be innovative. It takes less than $20 to register a domain name. You can do this. If you aren’t, who knows when the local daily will be.
  7. Okay, here comes the big one: THE GLASS IS HALF FULL. This is the thing you’ll find among almost everyone who follows new media closely – from Sholin, to Howard Owens, to Mindy McAdams, to Rob Curley to Adrian Holovaty, etc., etc. There’s a lot of great new media journalism going on. You need to become familiar with it. You need to help your students understand it. You need to point them to the web and encourage them to think innovatively.
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BigLickU on national ad radar, coming to a town near you?

10:38 am in industry news

The Business Beat

This post was written 40 days ago about an hour before the tragedy at Virginia Tech.

I’m attending the Newspaper Association Managers’ advertising national conference in Tunica, Miss., today as a speaker and attendee.

Advertising professionals from 30 states are in attendance for professional development and to learn about utilizing the power of the Web to develop new revenue streams.

One session this morning was led by Elaine Clisham, the director of marketing for The American Press Institute. As of late, much of her job entails taking the info generated by “Newspaper Next” and getting into the hands of industry professionals.

About 30 minutes through her presentation and while talking about innovative ideas for newspapers, Ms. Clisham brought up BigLickU as an excellent example of media innovation. Keep in mind, this is a national conference of ad professionals.

Ms. Clisham was gracious to offer an interview to CICM and had this to say about BigLickU.



Click To Play

API Director of Marketing Elaine Clisham on BigLickU

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Va. Tech day 3 updates

7:39 am in Va. Tech Shooting

Once again, I’ll post items that might be of interest to college media outlets as I see them. If your school media localized the story, send me an e-mail at scmurley -at- gmail.com, and i’ll drop it in the list.

CT’s list of confirmed dead.
ct

  • InsideVandy stories here and here (thanks to Paige Clancy)
  • Daily Arbiter stories here and here (thanks to Brad Arendt)
  • The Daily Kent Stater has a section of stories. A reporter who traveled to Va. Tech blogs her experience here (via Meranda Watling).
  • The MU Savitar reports that a shooting near the University of Missouri-Columbia was reported incorrectly as the news broke. (via Matt Sokoloff)
  • Tuesday’s CT front page
  • Wednesday’s CT front page (PDF 3.6 MB)
  • Editor & Publisher interviews Collegiate Times editor Amie Steele. The interview mentions that the Tuesday edition of the CT didn’t go to press until 6 a.m. Tuesday. It was mostly on the racks by 9-10 a.m. (hat tip: Journerdism)
  • Mark Hamilton dissects news coverage and says some things I totally agree with: The new coverage.
  • Student journalists from the Daily Pennsylvanian traveled to Va. Tech yesterday. Photos and stories here, here, and here.
  • The L.A. Times profiles the Collegiate Times staff’s response (via Romenesko).
  • The UVA Cavalier Daily front page from Tuesday
  • Housekeeping: For some reason, our site traffic statistics are showing a lot of visitors searching for BigLickU, the social networking site started by the Roanoke Times. Unfortunately, they are arriving at a post we wrote several months ago about the implications of BigLickU for college campus media. I’m almost positive that’s not the information they’re seeking. The interplay between the various media in Blacksburg (BigLickU, Roanoke.com, Collegiate Times, and Planet Blacksburg) is certainly an interesting story. In fact, Ralph Braseth interviewed someone at a media conference this weekend about BigLickU. But it’s not the story for now.

Previous coverage:
Va. Tech Updates

It’s only just begun..
Virginia Tech news analysis
Another campus shooting
and The problem with pre-roll advertisements: now is not the time

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BLU launches

12:20 pm in Community, industry news, Websites

BLU

BigLickU launched recently. We’ve covered the site extensively in the past (see here and here), and I’ve e-mailed Chris Winston to see if I can get a log-in to look at some of the back-end features. I’ll update as details change.

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Storm: newspapers, no; media companies, yes

12:19 am in Multimedia views

Via Bob Carey, blogging from the Southwestern Photojournalism Conference on Feb. 28, 2007 – Brian Storm: News “papers” Becoming Media Companies:

Brian Storm, founder of MediasStorm, told the opening session of the Southwestern Photojournalism Conference that newspapers are no longer strictly news “papers,” but are media companies documenting their local communities.

Bryan Murley, January 30, 2007:

Newspapers (news media companies) are becoming more attuned to the possibilities of leveraging that local content to cater to niche audiences, and building up the content by social networking.

I’m not claiming to be Brian Storm’s ghost writer, but I think it’s indicative of the zeitgeist of the times when two guys named Br(i/y)an who follow new media use the same phrase to describe what’s happening to news media these days.

I’ve said more and more since the announcement of BigLickU (from which that quote was taken) that college media organizations really need to start changing their outlook from that of a newspaper to a media company. It’s a different business, but one I think we can tackle, if we just start thinking of ourselves that way. It may be painful at first, but it’s looking like it’s not going to be a luxury before long, but a necessity.

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