Via Read/Write Web: Cofundos.org open-sources open-source software. Micropledge is similar.
These could affect my Knight grant proposal for a mass tech collaboration for the news industry.
Findings: Should Do This
Via David Cohn: Should Do This is essentially an open suggestion box. So far, there are only two entries for newspapers — to include links within online articles and to cut down on the paper editions.
Findings: to whom to pass the torch
From Hal Crowther at the Independent Weekly, via Philip Meyer:
“But the key point of understanding is that while the newspaper is expendable, the tradition it represents and the information it supplies are not. The evolution from Gutenberg to Gates may be irreversible, but as new media replace old ones there’s no official passing of the torch of responsibility, no automatic transfer of the sacred trust the First Amendment placed upon the free press and its proprietors. In fact the handoff, such as it is, has been fumbled very badly. As newspapers are eviscerated, marginalized and abandoned, they leave a vacuum that nothing and no one is prepared to fill—a crisis on its way to becoming a tragedy. When railroads and riverboats began to go the way of the passenger pigeon, no one was harmed except the workforce and a few big investors who had failed to diversify. If professional journalism vanishes along with the newspapers, this thing we call a constitutional democracy becomes a banana republic.”
Read/Write Web gives an example of who could inherit the torch. Josh Catone writes that stories by the Fake Steve Jobs were spread through a number of blogs as if they were real.
Findings: Life At
Via the Bivings Report: Life At, private social networks for big apartment buildings.
This is microlocal, and something newspapers should have done. They could still do it.
Knight: mass tech collaboration
Here is a version of my entry for the Knight News Challenge. This advanced to the second round. I am asking for $15,000 for planning and marketing.
Describe your project
The mass tech collaboration would bring together and focus the efforts of a relatively large number of mainly technical people for a defined and relatively short period of time. They would develop one or more news or information projects that are either local or are intended to be made localized.
Book report: ‘The Innovator’s Solution’
This is my homework for my “Saving Journalism” class.
“The Innovator’s Solution” explains how grooves become ruts – and how to climb out of the holes.
Findings: better digital display
Via Scientific American – Qualcomm is working on new displays with brighter color, even in the sun’s glare, and less energy use.
The technology is called “IMOD,” short for “interferometric modulator.” Part of how it works is by sandwiching reflective surfaces with a gap between them.
I read about this in the paper version of the magazine. The article is not free.
New revenue options
Thanks to Amy Gahran, I have a short article on Poynter about new revenue possibilities for the news business.
A few options are creating “new revenue” departments, multimedia advertorials and better paid obits. Also see the comments from Elaine Clisham of API.
Knight — Go, David!
My friend David Cohn also got good news from the Knight News Challenge. All three of his entries have advanced to the next round of the competition.
Findings: appointment ads, and Twine
Via the Bivings Report: A more sophisticated, and more useful, ad.
An ad on Yahoo e-mail for a a TV show “gave me the ability to add the show times of the show’s entire first season to my Yahoo! calendar with a button at the very bottom, which means that I can set up reminders of each episode.”
This kind of ad could be great at newspaper site. Or maybe the same function could be added to the news matter. We do have a lot of dated information.
From Read/Write Web: I only glanced at this info about Twine, from Radar Networks, but it seems like it has a lot of potential for, or competition for, news operations.
It’s described as “aspects of social networking, wikis, blogging, knowledge management systems – but its defining feature is that it’s built with Semantic Web technologies.” And ” ‘knowledge networking’ — i.e. it aims to connect people with each ‘for a purpose’.”
