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The new multimedia class camera

September 12, 2011 in Academics, Multimedia Course, Tech Talk, video

As many readers of this blog know, I’ve used two different cameras for our Intro to Multimedia Journalism course here at Eastern. The first year, we bought tape-based Kodak cameras. The second year, we upgraded to disk-based Kodak Vixia HD cameras.

Each  semester, I ran into several problems with the equipment: it was too complicated, or it wouldn’t work well with the software, or the files were so huge that it took forever for students to back up their work.

This year, we rethought the needs of the classes while making a purchasing decision on a new set of multimedia kits for the classrooms.

The upshot was that we wanted something simple and easy to use, that would also work well with our software. First, we looked at the Flip Camera, but at about the time we were getting our proposal together, Flip stopped producing cameras.

Then, we looked at the Kodak Zi8, similar to the Flip because it had the ability to use an external microphone. But after we’d put together the proposal, Kodak discontinued the Zi8. Grrrr!

So now we’re in possession of two classes worth of Kodak PlayTouch cameras. The cameras include a dual-purpose headphone/mic in jack.

The cameras are very easy to use. On-screen menus are not terribly confusing, and the video and audio quality are pretty good for a pocket video camera. They also record in m4v format, which makes importing into video editing software incredibly easy.

One of the purposes for choosing a pocket video camera instead of a higher-end camera was to remove as many technical obstacles as possible for beginning students, many of whom aren’t planning on careers as videographers. By removing the technical obstacles, the idea is that they (and their instructor) can spend more time focused on the purpose for video – telling the story.

I know some college media outlets are already using these cameras for reporters. For those who were looking at the Flip or Zi8, this seems like a pretty good alternative – at least until they discontinue it too. The price for the camera itself is around $125. I would encourage you to invest in a carrying case, however, as these things are definitely small and seem like they’d be easy to break.

I’ll report back more after we’ve used them for a semester.

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Radio reporting with the iPhone

April 5, 2011 in ideas, Tech Talk

Image representing iPhone as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

Neil Augenstein has a good post up at the PBS MediaShift blog about using his iPhone 4 for radio reporting. It’s worth a read because Augenstein is producing professional radio news with his phone, and it works.

So is it worth it? A year in, iPhone-only reporting isn’t perfect. While audio editing works great, with the phone’s built-in microphone I’d estimate the sound quality of my field reports is 92% as good as when I use bulky broadcast equipment. Getting better audio for my video is a real challenge. And if I ever have to cover a story from a subway tunnel or location where there’s no WiFi or cell coverage, I won’t be able to file until I resurface.

As digital equipment continues to morph I’m sure my tools will be substantially different within a few years. Every day, new applications open new opportunities for a reporter who’s willing to work around the limitations of iPhone-only reporting while maximizing the benefits.

This semester, we’ve been looking at using smaller equipment in our multimedia reporting class precisely because of the miniaturization of the news gathering equipment. I’ll talk more about the changes we’re making soon.

Is anyone out there in college media using mobile phones or iPod Touches (for instance) for gathering news on a consistent basis?

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LSU Reveille releases iPhone app

February 14, 2011 in College Media, innovation, Tech Talk

reveille

Ellen Kennerly, professional-in-residence at the LSU Reveille, sends along word that the Reveille has released an iPhone app. (link goes to Apple app store) The app was developed after Kennerly approached student developer Logan Leger about working for the Reveille. Leger spent most of the fall developing and tweaking the app while Kennerly went through the process of getting it approved for the app store.

Other college news media have released apps for the iPhone (unsure of any for the Android platform currently), but I am not aware of another student media app that was entirely designed by students. If you know of one, drop a note in the comments, or e-mail me.

Right now, the app features a feed of headlines, an archive search function, the ability to save articles, and current weather conditions for Baton Rouge. It will be interesting to watch what features are added in the future.

“It was fun — except for dealing with Apple — but it was still a blast to see what happens when you take journalists, add web developers and a smidge of nudging and stir …,” Kennerly wrote in an e-mail. “My takeaway as in Atlanta, where we did something similar, is that amazing chemistry explodes when you mix creative technologists and creative journalists.”

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Trying alternatives to delicious

January 13, 2011 in Tech Talk

Image representing Diigo as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Late last year, news leaked that Yahoo! might be shuttering delicious.com, the social bookmarking service that it acquired earlier. It’s not the first service Yahoo! has killed after spending money to acquire it (jumpcut.com was my first experience with this phenomenon). Apparently, Yahoo! has since said that it is seeking a buyer for delicious.com.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying out diigo.com, which is similar to delicious, but has some other features going for it as well. I’ve already imported all my bookmarks from delicious (a relatively painless process, I might add), and started using it to post the “Items to Read” posts here on the blog.

From the diigo website:

Diigo provides a browser add-on that can really improve your research productivity. As you read on the web, instead of just bookmarking, you can highlight portions of web pages that are of particular interest to you. You can also attach sticky notes to specific parts of web pages. Unlike most other web “highlighters” that merely clip, Diigo highlights and sticky notes are persistent in the sense that whenever you return to the original web page, you will see your highlights and sticky notes superimposed on the original page, just what you would expect if you highlighted or wrote on a book!

Moreover, all the information — highlighted paragraphs, sticky notes, and the original url — are saved on Diigo servers, creating your personal digest of the web, your own collection of highlights from the web – ones that are meaningful to you! You can easily search, access, sort and share this collection from any PC or even iPhone.

For those who are looking for an alternative to delicious, it’s worth a try, and the basic features are free to use, unlike some other alternatives that are out there. And if you’re interested in following my links on diigo, I’m Scmurley.

Thanks to Megan Taylor for the cue to check out this service.

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Get off my lawn: the tired, tired refrain that we’re teaching too much tech in journalism schools

November 10, 2010 in Academics, blogging, Tech Talk

Editor’s Note: This piece has been sitting in my “draft” folder since mid-September, which means it’s ancient in blog years. But since the topic is bound to come up again sometime soon (see the rule of online journalism discussion below), I’m posting it for posterity.


crankyclint

After five years of blogging about college media, I have formulated the following rule of online journalism discussion:

If you follow the “journorati,” i.e., the navel-gazing portion of the journalism industry that spends an inordinate amount of time talking about journalism, you will eventually hear the same arguments repeated, usually in 12-18 month cycles.

Which brings me to to the latest in a long-running, seemingly endless series of pearl-clutching, couch-fainting, concern-trolling articles about how journalism students are learning too much technology and not enough fundamentals.

This scene of the badly-scripted remake of “Groundhog Day” comes from Tony Rogers, a journalism instructor and journalism “Guide” at About.com (found via Dan Reimold). Rogers believes there is too much technology in journalism schools. The title of his article posted in September: Is There Too Much Tech Training at the Nation’s Journalism Schools?

NO.

This concludes another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.

For a more detailed response, follow me below the fold.

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Free online tools to expand your story

October 30, 2010 in College Media, ideas, Links, online software, Tech Talk

links

I have created a page under the “Resources” tab at the top of the blog with a list of links to free online tools. This is a gathering place for links that I showed during a presentation at the National College Media Convention in Louisville (and also a couple of other workshops). I’ll be updating it in the future with other sites. Check it out here.

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Meet your new (Apple) mojo kit

September 2, 2010 in Multimedia views, Tech Talk

hd_video_snapshot20100901

Update: Damon Kiesow responds at Poynter (see below).

Apple held their fall product announcement event yesterday. The iPod lineup got a complete makeover. The biggest announcement from a journalistic perspective – hands down – was the addition of video/still cameras to the iPod Touch.

While the Droid X and other Android phones duke it out with the iPhone for supremacy in terms of mobile phones, the iPod Touch has languished in development until now.

The addition of the HD cameras (both front and rear-facing) make it perfect for a journalist on the go who either doesn’t want to pay a monthly surcharge for data rates on a mobile plan, or doesn’t want to switch providers because of Apple’s AT&T exclusivity.

The downside, of course, is that the cost of the iPod Touch went up a bit.

The new features will be useful for students at the University of Missouri and other j-schools who are “required” to purchase one.

Engadget has a hands-on review of the new iPod Touch.

Update with comment: Kiesow notes the paltry quality of the back still camera and lack of GPS on the new iPod Touch:

However, the back still camera is a paltry 960 x 720 pixels (.69 megapixels), which is far less than the 5-megapixel camera included on the iPhone 4. Of some lesser concern, the iPod Touch does not include a GPS radio, so location sensing is handled by identifying the WiFi networks the device can detect. That is not necessarily an issue for actual news gathering, but it does mean you would need an additional device (GPS or cell phone) to meet any location or navigation needs.

These are certainly valid points. I suppose I’m seeing more of an attraction for college journalists who lack the resources to pay for a full-featured iPhone + mobile plan (or young journalists just starting out who would like to eat more than Ramen noodles on a beginning salary). As Damon mentions, the GPS issue is less mission-critical for actual news gathering. And, I imagine the camera will be upgraded in future editions (hopefully).

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New hosting options for college media

June 17, 2010 in Media Companies - College Related, Tech Talk, Websites

Way back in the dark ages of college online media (2006), I wrote a post outlining options for college news media to host their online presence. At that time, the options were very limited. There was College Publisher or some sort of host-your-own CMS set-up, the main variable being where the site was hosted: on-campus, on your servers, or on an off-campus hosting solution.

I won’t rehash what I wrote in that post, since most of it still applies, but I will point to four commercial options available to student media in the wake of the closing of CoPress last semester. These are companies that are aiming specifically at the college media market, not a standard commercial web hosting service.

Also, this post deals strictly with the hosting/server end of the web site equation. I am making no judgment as to the relative merits of various content management systems. Perhaps I’ll write more about that later.

I should also mention that the Daily Eastern News is in the process of updating our web site design, so I’ve been examining these options over the past couple of months.

collegepublisher College Publisher: College Publisher is the CMS/hosting system run by College Media Network, a division of MTV, which is owned by Viacom. It is the oldest, and by far the largest, player in the college media web hosting universe. College Publisher is on version 5, which is based on a CMS created by Polopoly (now a division of Atex). Unlike the other options listed here, CP is a “turnkey” solution. Student media sites are hosted on College Media Network servers, and technical support is provided by CMN. In exchange for hosting the site, CMN sells advertising in the top ad positions on each student media site. Student media outlets are able to sell other advertising spots as they are able.

New Options

amm-logo-masthead • Alloy Media + Marketing: Alloy is an advertising and marketing company that aims at the college market, and they are providing a hosting solution similar to what CoPress provided. The set-up is much like what you would find on any commercial hosting service, except they hope to offer some added benefits to college media in the future (like an ad network, for instance), and they will be offering more focused support for the service. The basic cost is $250/mo. plus a set-up fee. They are currently supporting WordPress installs. Here’s a PDF that explains some of the technical details. The Cal Poly Mustang Daily is one of their clients, switching from CoPress.

townnews • TownNews.com: TownNews.com is the content management system company that runs the online sites for newspapers in the Lee Enterprises newspaper chain (the Decatur Herald-Review in Illinois is one such newspaper). The company’s CMS is named Blox. It’s built on PHP, and hosted on the TownNews.com servers. It’s a drag-and-drop system that has some pretty sturdy features. However, you are limited in the number of design choices you can make to their templates at the moment. The Iowa State Daily and the Independent Florida Alligator both run on a TownNews.com system. The company is currently looking to expand into the college market, and I would encourage you to discuss the price with them. Like Alloy, they charge a one-time set-up fee and then a per-month fee. Paul Wilson was the salesperson who I spoke with about the system. If you’re interested, you may contact him at pwilson -at- townnews.com

dsw_logo• Detroit SoftWorks: Detroit SoftWorks has a CMS, Gryphon, that was originally created for the State News at Michigan State University. The company also integrates a web ad management system, a photo sales system, and a new housing guide system into a total online package. Costs of the DS system are: $250/mo. for weeklies (up to three publications per week); $375/mo. for dailies. Set-up charge is $1,500 for a basic set-up, with a $2,000 charge for data migration (which means someone switching from College Publisher would have to cough up $3,500 in start-up fees). Clients include The Grand Valley Lanthorn, the New Mexico Daily Lobo, and the Eastern Echo at Eastern Michigan University, among others.

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iPad first impressions, CICM news podcast

April 20, 2010 in CICM shop talk, iPad, Tech Talk

Last week, I was able to talk via Skype with Dan Reimold of College Media Matters. We talked iPad, the ACU iPad app, and some news about CICM itself. hope you’ll listen. We’re thinking about continuing this, so let us know if you think we should keep talking or just shut up and blog. :)

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The Optimist iPad app: College media app could deliver more using device’s capabilities

April 14, 2010 in iPad, Tech Talk

As soon as the iPad was announced, Abilene Christian University was promising that The Optimist, the student newspaper at ACU, would have the first college news media iPad app.

A team of faculty and student researchers and developers from multiple departments at the university plan to have the Optimist ready for the iPad by the end of March. Optimist editors plan to employ the new platform to deliver a more converged form of media to the ACU community in addition to the print, online and iPhone app versions of the Optimist.

Sure enough, Dan Reimold reports at College Media Matters, the Optimist app is now available for download.

Here’s a video from ACU featuring faculty and student editors talking about the new app, and some footage of the app in action.

I downloaded the app over the weekend, as I was curious about what was included in this first student media effort on the Magical Unicorn Device.

Before I get into the details, let me give kudos to the students and faculty at ACU who worked so quickly to turn this app out. It works, and for what it does, it’s a perfectly serviceable app.

From the description in the iTunes app store:

Version 1.0 of the ACU Optimist App features:
• Dynamic content selector to allow you to move between sections
• Access to over five years of story archives
• Photo montages
• Updated ACU Wildcat Sports scores

A screen capture from the Optimist iPad app page.

A screen capture from the Optimist iPad app page.

So far, my response to the app has been lukewarm. It looks and feels a lot like a basic port of the Optimist’s WordPress-powered web site. The stories are listed in descending chronological order. Clicking on a headline takes you to the story page, which looks a lot like a standard WordPress single post page.

The text on screen is readable. the full-color photos are gorgeous. Depending on your WiFi, the stories load quickly when you click on the headlines. If you swipe your finger from the right side of the screen toward the left (near the top of the screen), you can also move from one section screen to the next section screen.

At the right side of the screen is a “Contents” tab that slides out to reveal four sections: News, Sports, Arts & Culture, and Opinion. Notice anything missing from that list? A dedicated section for multimedia content. For instance, the store description promises “photo montages,” but, poking around the app, I wasn’t able to find any.

Compare that with the online Optimist web site, which does suffer from a little too much “nav bar creep” (The tendency to add more and more nav bar links to different parts of a site). But prominent in the lower nav bar are links to its multimedia content (podcasts and videos).

optimistcom

And despite the promise of “converged media,” much of the Optimist’s online text content still lacks hyperlinks. Over several days of testing the app, I was able to find one story on the iPad app home screen that had a hyperlink to another web site (to be fair, this isn’t the app’s fault – most of the current stories on the web site don’t have hyperlinks either).

I assume the archive access is primarily available through the search feature in the contents tab. It would be nice to have monthly archive listing available as an option. I typed “2007″ into the search engine and came up with nothing.

In terms of iPad capabilities, the one “bug” I found in the app was that it doesn’t rotate to landscape view when you turn the iPad on its side, unlike most of the media apps I’ve looked at recently. This is not an iPad specific feature, it’s also part of the iPhone/iPod Touch user interface.

As I said, having looked through the iPad Software Development Kit, I give high praise to the ACU students and faculty for producing an app for this new computing device.

But my overall impression is that the Optimist development team could have spent more time working on the presentation and iPad feature list and not so much on being first out of the gate.

As this is version 1.0, there is promise for much more innovation out of this effort, and I look forward to see what uses they can make of features like location-awareness.

I hope the development team will look at what other news outlets are doing with their apps – check out the Reuters News Pro app for an example of weaving multimedia content into the home page, for instance – and improve the Optimist app in future versions.

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