If all else fails, try brainwashing ink
Posted on February 9, 2008
I stumbled upon a cartoon, “Jacob Two Two,” this morning while I was flipping channels on TV. The animation caught my eye, and then the content of the show drew me in.
I was watching episode #5 “Jacob Two Two and the Daily Crown,” (which originally aired in 2001, I think) about Jacob, a 10-year-old boy who lives in Montreal, and his friend Buford who think their city’s newspaper is dull, dull, dull. Bad grammar and comics that aren’t funny top their list of complaints. Who would read the newspaper? they ask as they throw it in the trash.
Hmm.
But wait, all is not lost … soon, they find all the adults in Montreal mesmerized by the paper. Everyone’s reading it. Subscriptions and advertising is at an all-time high.
How could this be? Is there actually some news in it worth reading that the kids are missing or don’t understand? Is the newspaper catering too much to older readers? In the end, do Jacob and Buford learn about journalism and the importance of the press?
Nah.
Turns out it’s part of an evil plot by con man Carl Fester King, the new owner of the paper and printing press who declares himself “King of the World.” He put a brainwashing chemical in the ink to get readers to, well, read.
That’s a great lesson for the kids: The only way circulation could rise for print papers is if we brainwash the readers.
Another interesting tidbit: Jacob refused to do research on the newspaper’s Web site, too, saying “no not that one … I want to get the dirt.”
Part I
Part II
Part III
Good reads for 10.13.07
Posted on October 13, 2007
>> That’s a wrap for Roanoke.com’s TimesCast. Lots of comments about the end of its era going on out there:
The official Roanoke.com announcement says: “We learned a lot of lessons in the two years since the work on the TimesCast began. We’ve applied those lessons to other Webcasts and to broader video efforts. It’s because of those Webcasts and our plans to do more with video produced in the field that we’ve decided to move beyond the TimesCast.”
Former producer and on-air talent Patrick Beeson reflects on the experience and how it affected the newsroom and the entire industry. He also speculates why it may have ended.
Lucas Grindley was never a fan and is only surprised it took so long for them to throw in the towel.
Bryan Murley disagrees and says two years isn’t too far off of the yardstick.
Mindy McAdams wasn’t a fan either. She does, however, give a nod to Roanoke.com for it’s cutting-edge idea, and says: “Maybe this move is a (good) sign of things to come — maybe a lot of other news organizations will realize that the television people have already failed at this, and there’s no earthly reason for newspapers to make the same mistakes.”
>> Online producer = journalist. Really. If we EVER want our news organizations to survive, we have to stop this us vs. them outlook. Meranda Watling says one of the reasons the online department at her newspaper isn’t in the newsroom is “because the online people are more techies and personalities don’t mesh with the word folks in the newsroom.” (Words of others at her paper, not hers.)
>> Need some design resources, tips and samples? Check out Smashing Magazine. I’ve referenced their stories several times. Danny Sanchez provides some reasons why the site is so great .
>> More reasons to Facebook. Steve Outing provides a very nice argument as to why your newspaper should seriously think about spending resources on developing Facebook apps.
Outing writes: “Facebook users are experiencing social interactions on the site, and “you don’t have to jump too far” to go from a Facebook user interacting with his/her friends to the user interacting with content from an organization that he/she trusts, Stutzman says. The key is to understand that the Facebook experience (and of course this extends to other social networks) is about connections. And this can apply nicely to news.”
What are you waiting for? Go make some apps.
>> ABC is reproducing the Evening News for the Web. Says The New York Times: “ABC is the only major broadcast network that is using the staff of its evening newscast to produce a separate and distinct daily program for a Web audience. The 15-minute Webcast often features Mr. Gibson in the anchor chair, but the similarities end there: the segments can run long, and they purposely look raw and personal, as if they were made for MTV rather than ABC.”
Only thing missing from the story is a link to the Webcast. Unfortunately, it was difficult to find on ABC’s page, even. You can watch it here.
Trying to change the world through film
Posted on September 19, 2007
So ask yourself this. If you had the entire world’s attention for just a few minutes, what story would you tell? Perhaps you think the world looks at you, your country and your culture… and just doesn’t understand. Then do something about it. Make a film
That’s what filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, who won the TED Prize, is challenging people to do with Pangea Day, which will take place on May 10, 2008, and feature short films submitted by people around the world.
It shows the power of video and the potential that some feel — and passionately so — that it holds. This ad reminds me of what user-generated video is all about and how newspapers should dig a little deeper when they can to receive some meaningful submissions.
Take a look:
‘Like Facebook — with wrinkles’
Posted on September 16, 2007
Sites such as Eons, Rezoom, Multiply, Maya’s Mom, Boomj, and Boomertown are targeting older Internet users who are “less likely than youngsters to flit from one trendy site to the next,” reports the New York Times.
So while all we hear about at newspapers is how to get that coveted 18-34 reader who is THE future reader, perhaps we’re missing an opportunity by not addressing needs of older readers:
But there are 78 million boomers — roughly three times the number of teenagers — and most of them are Internet users who learned computer skills in the workplace. Indeed, the number of Internet users who are older than 55 is roughly the same as those who are aged 18 to 34, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, a market research firm.
Facebook app gets hyperlocal
Posted on August 21, 2007
I’m enjoying developing my Facebook page and catching up with friends with whom I had lost contact. And I noticed yesterday a little application that my friends have started using: Neighborhoods.
Which got me thinking that this could be a worthy rival to newspaper hyperlocal Web sites that are being developed. If I can use a social networking site that I’m already fond of to connect with my neighbors, why would I log onto a newspaper Web site?
Then I came across a LostRemote posting that confirmed my fears:
Already in Seattle, 1,200 users have selected their neighborhoods, which means they can now meet their neighbors, invite their neighbors to events, upload photos, browse real estate listings and post items on “The Wall” — a bulletin board of sorts. With the social network already established, you can just imagine what else they could add to the application. While media companies struggle with launching financially-viable hyperlocal destinations, Facebook is well on its way to doing it.
Arg.
Newspapers have to hurry, hurry, hurry, and get their community sites going.
The most frustrating part of this is that Bakersfield’s Northwest Voice has been doing publishing a hyperlocal site (and doing it very well) for three years and it was no secret in the industry. Other newspapers have no excuse. They should have taken notice earlier and established community interaction BEFORE this Facebook application could be any sort of threat.
LA homicides in 2007
Posted on August 12, 2007
Los Angeles has endured it’s share of violence. Seriously, it’s a tough city whose paper has to devote a daily blog to homicides, which is turning out to be an effective way of presenting their story that’s too big to fit in print.
The list represents an effort to provide comprehensive coverage of all homicides that occur in Los Angeles County. Overwhelmed by the sheer volume, the Los Angeles Times, like other major media organizations, covers only a fraction of the more than 1,000 murders in Los Angeles County each year. Many violent deaths become, in essence, private homicides — catastrophic on a small scale, invisible on a broader one.
Recently, they added an interactive map to better visually tell the story. The Baltimore Sun put together a similar map last month, but the Times’ version shows what you can do by adding more resources to the presentation.
The Times has integrated theirs with a bar graphic, photos, reader comments, a list of the deceased, and a search box. This is really impressive. I particularly like the photos and ability to leave comments. The editors have taken a stat-heavy, impersonal presentation (the map alone) and instantly have created an emotional link with the reader.
Here’s a sample comment posted by J.Henn that illustrates best what I mean:
Being a former LAPD officer I’ve been to more homicide scenes than I care to count. But seeing all these PEOPLE murdered is quite shocking,all these lives taken in a few short weeks. All these victims families devastated, in the blink of an eye. GOD bless the Victims and their Loved ones, and take vengeance on the ignorant murderers.
Another thing I like about this interactive: Readers can access the information in many ways, without the whole package seeming too repetitive. You can sort by date and then filter that information by age/ethnicity/gender/etc. Or you can search on your own. Once you get your data, you can click on the map and get the information. Or you can click on the name from a list.
Credits: Jill Leovy, a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, writes the blog. I don’t know if she created the interactive, too. No credits are listed on that page.
Baltimore homicides in 2007
Posted on July 20, 2007
The Baltimore Sun put this map together as a part of their Confronting Crime series.
What an effective way to illustrate this series. You can search their interactive database of homicides so far this year, and click on a point to see who was killed where.
They say a picture is worth 1,000 words: Try a search for all blacks in all of 2007, then compare that map to all whites in all of 2007.
Holy crap.
Credits: Data compiled by Sun reporter Gus Sentementes using information from the City of Baltimore. Baltimoresun.com designer Stephen Mekosh produced the Google Map mashup.
UPDATE: I made a typo in the headline that was completely unintentional. It’s now fixed.
Harry Potter and the Prarie Hallows
Posted on July 12, 2007
I came across this cute, cute site tonight (via the Digital Edge), put together by the News-Gazette in Champaign, Ill., which counts down to the release of Harry Potter’s newest movie and book, both happening this month.
The design is very nice and quite a departure from the News-Gazette’s main site. One of their goals, according to Digital Edge, is to appeal to a younger audience, and I think the look and feel works for a pre-teen through adult (not so much for the younger readers, though).
The site is full of interactive goodies, including trivia, polls, forums, a calendar of local Harry Potter-related events, and a spell feature where readers can create their own spells, guess what other spells do and comment on them. Another cute feature: Send a friend a “howler,” which mimics the reprimanding audio-telegram that Hogwarts students receive from their parents.
Two things that would make this site even better:
>> The blog hasn’t been updated since July 5 — I want to read about the movie’s opening night reactions.
>> And I want even more reader interaction.
There’s a photo gallery, but I’d love to see a way for readers to upload their own pictures.
And on the In the News page, local Harry Potter Club members put together a video newscast, with their own commercials. It’s cute (a little hard to hear at times, and it is what it is: you’re watching a kids’ play), but it’s a great addition to this niche site. It’d be even better if other readers could upload their own videos.
Serving the reader
Posted on June 19, 2007
Full disclosure: This is sort-of-but-not-really tooting my own horn. I had nothing to do with this project, but it comes out of HeraldTribune.com.
Database power team Maurice Tamman and Charlie Szymanski (they created IbisEye.com) have put together a tax calculator to help residents figure out how proposed Florida property tax changes would mean to them.
Taxes are confusing to begin with, but this proposal by state lawmakers makes you choose between a new super homestead plan and the current Save our Homes plan.
Tamman and Szymanski turned this tool around in a day, too, to accompany ongoing print stories. So it’s timely, interactive, and a real service to readers.
‘Deja vu,’ I’ve seen this before
Posted on June 15, 2007
In the film Deja Vu with Denzel Washington, the government found a way to use many different satellite video images to pull together a 3-D image that took place exactly four days in the past.
One of those movies that requires you to ’suspend reality’ for a few hours, right?
Well, maybe not. Blaise Aguera y Arcas has co-created an application called Photosynth, which grafts together a variety of images into a multidimensional space that can be viewed from different angles and magnifications (minus the time travel portal … for now).
Search for commonly shot things such as Notre Dame, and the application builds it for you based on all the photos found on the Web.
Says Arcas:
“We can do things with the social environment; this is now taking data from everybody from the entire collective data, link them together and create something emergent that’s greater than the sum of its parts.”
Check out this video demo at TED and this one via Microsoft Live Labs to see it for yourself.
So you’ve seen how cool it is for photos. Do the same thing with video, and we’ve just made a seemingly far-fetched sci-fi movie a reality.
(TED link found via MultimediaShooter)
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