Time Flies! (Working with Timelines)

I wanted to start off this blog with an image of what I am dreaming of...warmth, sunshine, and sunflowers. Instead, it is currently rainy, slushy, dark, and gray out. It's quite depressing.

I am escaping the ominous weather here at the Daily Freeman. Today I played around with Storify for a little bit. Storify is a tool that allows you to gather pictures, videos, tweets, facebook status' news stories, and regular search results and organize them so you can use them in a story. Ivan often talks about Storify and how great it is; but now I can say so for myself. It really is a great tool to use in order to gather information and organize it.

My next task was to search for tools that could be used to create an interactive online timeline. I began my search and was not very optimistic because most of the results that came up at first were aimed at teachers and were printable. Then I found this article from Tech & Learning.

From there I began experimenting with different websites. The first one I tried to use was called OurStory. I played around with it for a little while but it seemed like it would be a tool that is more for personal use. It allows you to e-mail friends and family a question. (For example: Do you remember how, when, and why we first met?) Friends and family can then contribute their stories about how they met you, add pictures, and OurStory.com puts them into a timeline.

Preceden is the website that I tried next. It was easy to use but was not very interactive and was not very appealing to the eye. It looked more like an excel program than it did a timeline.

I took a look at timetoast which Ivan used on his blog to make a time line of the Matthews Scandal going on in Kingston. The website allows for interactivity which is good. It allows pop-ups and links to articles.

My favorite tool by far was Dipity. It was easy to use, gave you some freedom for creativity, and was interactive (which is what I was looking for considering it would be used on the web). This is the end product of what I was able to create with Dipity:

Timothy Matthews on Dipity.

The last tool I took a look at was Capzles. I was not able to play around with it for too long; however it was very similar to Dipity. One of my favorite timelines that I found while searching the website seemed more like a photo montage that allowed you to see specific information when you click on the image.

Part of the purpose of this internship is to find tools available online that would be useful to the field of journalism. After becoming to accustomed to making time-lines today. I definitely think that a good program for making interactive time-lines that include information along with photos and videos can be very useful to the field of journalism.

Marvelous Metrics!

When I walked into the Daily Freeman this afternoon, I had not a single preconceived notion of metrics. I actually had no idea what metrics had to do with journalism. Well, thank goodness for the JRCChat !

The chat today focused on using metrics to measure what readers are clicking on, at what time of day, and on what type of device. This is important to journalism because it allows journalists to better understand their readers. It helps newsrooms understand what their readers like and don't like as well as how their audience reads the news.

The industry is changing and it is no longer so much the audience looking for news as it is journalists trying to get the news out to readers before they find it somewhere else. Metrics allows newsrooms to find out how or through what type of device or social media site readers are attaining information, as well as in what time frame this is occurring.

Bit.ly is a free site that allows users to shorten URLs as well as track how many people are clicking the shortened link. The site provides a metric summary which monitors the location of users clicking on your link, the referring domains (ex:twitter, facebook, direct click), and a detailed time-line of when users looked at you link. Bit.ly also offers an add-on for Mozilla Firefoz. This allows users to scroll over a bit.ly link and see a preview of the link as well as how many clicks it has received.

A similar site is TweetReach that is specifically designed for Twitter. The site allows you to search for a user, hashtag, phrase, or URL. It shows you how many users that term has reached using however many tweets.

In the JRCChat, users suggested that newsrooms keep these metric sites up on display so that reporters can use the information to their advantage.

People argue that metrics are simply for "click-baiting" and not for journalism. Splitting up an online story into multiple pages is an example that I believe proves that statement to be true; although readers have not yet complained about this set-up.

After learning all about metrics and how it works, I took some time to explore it myself. I registered myself for a bit.ly account and started sharing links! I posted a bit.ly link of online version of the Pet Photo Contest article to my twitter and my facebook. And then I waited. Within a half hour I was able to see that one person clicked on the link through twitter while three people clicked on the link through facebook.

I tried the same thing with my blog. I shortened the link with bit.ly and posted it to facebook and twitter. I also sent it to Howard Good, one of my previous professors, in hope of him sharing it with some of his colleagues and friends. Another half hour later, I was able to see that 5 people clicked on the link through e-mail or a direct click, while 15 clicked on it through facebook.

After experimenting on my own, I was able to see what worked better. Clearly, facebook (at this time of day) was working better for me in spreading my links. The idea is that journalists can use applications such as these to decide what to post, when, where, and how, in order to get optimal views.

Metric Summary

Clicks within a Timeline

Listed Links with # of Clicks

I'll be keeping tabs on how many clicks I get now!

Pet Photo Contest 2011

It's Raining Cats and Dogs...

Cats and Dogs definitely took home the prize for most wins in this years Pet Photo Contest at the Daily Freeman. Today I was able to see the layout of the paper where the article I wrote will be published, along with the photos that won in each category.

It was definitely interesting to see the page layout before it is printed. I was able to see where information still needed to be filled and where advertisements still needed to be placed.

Since today is Friday, I read "This Week in Review" written by Mark Coddington from the Nieman Lab. This week it talked about Apple's decision on allowing other companies create apps for the iPad. Apple wants 30% of whatever these companies make and this decision has been receiving many different reactions; however, most are negative.

After I read some articles from Nieman Lab and Poynter, I began to put together slide shows of pictures from the pet contest to go along with the article online. I really am beginning to have a deeper understanding of why it is so important to supplement the articles that are posted online.

I tried many different kinds of slideshow makers (all of which were free). Vuvox was an application that I have tried in the past and it seemed very complicated and didn't work very well. Photosnack was one of the websites that I enjoyed working with because it was simple and allowed you to be creative with it. Kizoa was another website that I enjoyed working on.

In total, I made about 5 different slideshows of the winners, some good, some not so good. But it was good to play around with different sites because I was able to see what I liked and what I didn't like about each one.

Hopefully one of my slideshows is good enough to use...but nobody will know until Sunday when the article comes out!

I am going to leave off with one of my personal favorite photos I have seen from the contest...

They're all so cute!

Multi-Media Reporting

Today at noon I observed another Cover It Now live JRCChat. The topic was multimedia reporting. I am starting to feel a lot more comfortable with the chats. I am becoming familiar with people who regularly participate in the chats. I am also becoming more familiar with the lingo that is used in the chats.

The discussion today was about what a reporter should be doing at a single event. Taking notes, video, tweeting, chatting, etc. There were many opinions. Some people thought that the low quality of video at certain events would mean that a reporter who is shooting it, wold be wasting their time. Others stated that because community members use social media to spread local news before newsrooms even receive the information that it is more important that they get videos out fast even if the quality isn't great.

Livestreaming was another topic of discussion. Livestreaming is only effective if you have a strong internet connection and good audio. If you don't have these two things, viewers will get annoyed and not tune in anymore.

Another question was about what the ideal size of a crowd to livestream would be. A large press conference is what some people agreed would be an ideal situation to do that in.

As always, the last question was not a question but an active response:p post a link. One of the links was a New York Times article about how some people think reporters are being replaced by citizens who are writing for free (example: Huffington Post). There was another article that argued with the NYTimes article.

After the chat, I separated some more pet pictures into categories. A lot of pictures got disqualified because they were postmarked after the deadline. I had some time to kill after that because Ivan was working on his computer and my next task was to sort the pictures that came in through e-mail over the weekend.

While I was waiting I found some cool website. Innovative Interactivity was one of them. I browsed around and ended up looking at examples of stories that were put together very well as multi-media packages.

After googling multi-media journalism for a while, I was able to get to Ivan's computer to sort through more pictures of cats, dogs, guinea pigs.. and today i received a picture of a mouse! After all of that I was assigned a task...to start the article on the pet contest! I am excited and I already started; however I am going to finish it tomorrow. Right now I am going to take some Tylenol because I have a fever =/.

Dogs, Cats, Frogs, Horses...This place is a zoo!

The Daily Freeman Pet Photo Contest is back! There are over four hundred entries already and a few more days before the deadline. Today I had the most delightful job of opening up envelope after envelope of photo's displaying animal owners' best friends.

It's a good thing I'm an animal lover, or else I probably would have gotten sick of looking at dogs, cats, hamsters, frogs, donkeys, horses, chinchillas, and even goats. I have my own dog named Daisy Jane Bubbles Bergstrom who I love more than my own sisters, so I was able to relate to the messages that pet owners attached to the photos of their animals.

As I was reading the descriptions that came along with the photos, there were many animals who were adopted after being rescued. There was one dog who was born without eyes; yet the owner described him as the happiest, most loving dog in the world. There was another dog who had multiple physical disabilities because he was the result of inbreeding; yet he also had an owner that loved him.

A lot of pet owners described their pets as their "best friends". To them, an animal is someone who has loved them, filled the place of a loved one who has passed, someone who greets them at the door after a hard day of work, or someone who can simply put a smile on their face even when they're in the worst of moods.

People love their pets; so it is understandable that there is an overabundant and extremely diverse number of submissions. There are seven categories in the contest that include: weirdest pet, best looking pet, best photo composition, best expression, best pet pals, best outfit, and best owner look-alike.

I've spent the day here at the Freeman, opening envelopes and e-mails, reading descriptions,and sorting each photo into the separate categories (while adoring each animal as I went.) While I was able to sort most of the entries into categories, I unfortunately had to disqualify some entries because they did not follow the guidelines.

The winner of each category will be chosen by a series of judges after the final deadline. I am really excited because I just found out that I will be writing about the pet photo contest; mostly because I went through all of them and have seen which pets have gone into which categories.

I am very excited to do this not only because I love animals but because I will be writing for something outside of school and that is something new to me. I know it is not the biggest deal in the world but it is definitely something I am looking forward to.

My stomach is growling!

For the past two hours, I have been tuning out the sounds of a newsroom: phones ringing, constant typing, conversations about accidents, appointments for interviews, etc. Instead, I have been completely focused on the beastly noise that is coming from my stomach. This is the only thing I have consumed since 7a.m.

And this is what I have been daydreaming about since about 9a.m. This is what I wish I had, more than anything, right now.

Besides staring at food that I so desperately want but do not have, I have been doing some productive stuff as well. When I first got in earlier today, I observed a live chat between people who work in the field of journalism. The discussion consisted of questions that were posted in ten minute intervals.

The first question was about AOL taking over the Huffington Post. A lot of people seemed to agree that the move was beneficial to both companies because it gave one a voice while providing the other with content. As of right now it seems like a good idea.

The second question was about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The discussion was about how SEO is affecting content in the field of journalism. I agreed with a lot of the users who claimed that content should not be changed because of SEO. It is more important that content is good rather than just crap that people search for and click on. If SEO is deemed more important than content, the quality of content will diminish quickly because journalists are more concerned with getting a lot of hits rather than maintaining good quality writing.

The next question was about whether small news organizations should develop applications for iPads, iPhones, Droids, etc or develop efficient, mobile-friendly site. The consensus seemed to be that it would be more useful to create mobile websites because it keeps the reader more interested. Applications in my opinion seem to be too segregated. I think that it is more of a hassle for readers to download and go into an app rather than simple go to a website on their phones.

The last question asked what kind of application would be useful in the field of journalism. All of the answers had to do with user feedback or contribution. Enabling users to post pictures, comments, and videos seemed to be the central answer. I think that a problem with all of this new technology is that although it is cool and fun to use, people can't seem to find a really good, solid use for it in the professional field.

After the chat, I sat down and logged into twitter, facebook, and blogger. I now understand the importance of linking all your social networks to each other. I linked my twitter and blog to my facebook. so that everything is interconnected. My number of followers has increased since last week (which I am happy about) but I still want to get some more followers.

To do this, I started to look at who small publications or organizations in my surrounding areas were following, and I started following them too. I then looked at who they followed and followed them as well. Another way to gain more followers is to retweet what others are talking about and give them recognition; so I tried that a few times. One thing that I still want to try is to participate in hashtags. Hopefully that will bring up my number of followers also.

I must say that at first, I thought it was slightly trivial to have to learn how to use twitter. Now, I am really starting to understand how useful it is in the field of journalism as well as other fields. I am beginning to practice it and am even putting it to good use. For example, I am a mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters and am planning on hopefully developing a twitter for them and linking it up to a blog about being a mentor.

I know I am going to learn much more here at the Freeman and am excited to do so. As for now...I'm going to go get some food.

Twitter!

I really am beginning to feel like I don't fit in with my generation. I am 20 years old and supposedly a part of the generation of technology. Yet somehow, I have never had a twitter until about two weeks ago, and now I am struggling to find out everything there is to do with twitter.

For the past two and a half hours I have been looking up tips for twitter newbies and what not to do with twitter.

Please take note of the thousands of tabs open in the top of my screen. So far I have learned useful things. I learned how to tweet at specific people, which comes in very handy. I also learned how to search for friends and how to follow friends of friends who may have similar interests.

From there I learned how to use lists to organize who I am following. I also found a cool application that deals with lists and allows you to interview users who are listed. I found a really useful website on one of the tips for beginners sites that shortens URLs so that they can fit into a tweet.

I am becoming more confident with twitter so I was able to post some tweets based on the new things that I learned. One thing that I still do not quite understand how to use are hashtags. I understand that it groups users together for a common topic but I don't understand how those topics come about and how to find them. That's what I will be focusing on next.

Social media from what I am learning needs to be connected to one another. I am starting to see that a blog, a twitter, facebook, etc can not stand on its own. It is not nearly as effective as when all of these mediums are connected and used together. After learning this, I decided to link my twitter to my blog. I am also going to post a tweet with a link to my blog.

I am hoping that it all falls together nicely; but if not, I'm sure I will figure out a way to make it all work.

#JRCChat

Today, I woke up at 7:15 to look outside my window and see a winter wonderland. I couldn't even see the streets. I checked my e-mail and saw that my 9:25 class was cancelled by my professor. I went back to sleep and woke up at 9am to start shoveling my car out. To make a long story short, I couldn't get my car out of my drive-way for two hours and when I did the roads were too bad to drive to Kingston.

Instead, I received an assignment for my internship to do at home. I followed a live chat via twitter. The first thing that I noticed is that the Live Chat on the Kingston Daily Freeman was faster than watching it occur on the TweetChat. This was the first live chat I had ever witnessed and it definitely was not what I expected. I thought it would be confusing and jumbled. However, it was very organized and easy to follow.

It was really cool to see that people from all over the place, who I am sure were working on or doing other things as well as participating in the chat, were trading ideas and resources with each other.

Along with seeing how well this form of communication works I also learned some other things. I understand crowd so much more after watching the chat. I also began to realize how important it is to be up to date with news 24/7. Having a twitter chat along with a video is also a great and effective idea. I also can see how having sister publications collaborate with each other can be a really positive thing.

Lastly, I thought question five was great: Not a question. Post a useful link. It was interesting and useful to see what other people thought were important links to use in the field of journalism.

So although I am still unable to leave my house, I did end up learning quite a bit in the one hour chat that took place.