politicalbs.com » CitizenMedia

Jim Romenesko is having a good time. Lately, the "journalism evangelist," "KING of the blogosphere," and "go-to source for news about the news" has been waking up earlier, posting more often, and featuring content he had not felt free to publish for more than a decade.

In the wake of his abrupt departure from The Poynter Institute late last year, he established an eponymous independent site that has quickly been embraced by media professionals, educators, students, and even a few Facebook spammers worldwide.

In just over two months and 400 posts, JimRomenesko.com has become the journalism community's newest destination site. The rapidity of the site's rise in popularity and influence has even surprised its founder. He is beginning to earn revenue from related advertising, but sees the cash simply as a bonus.

"I guess in many ways this is my retirement blog," said Romenesko, 58, in a recent phone chat. "I feel that I can get up and start working when I want to. I can stop when I want to. But it's been so much fun that I actually get up earlier now than I did when I was employed by Poynter. I enjoy posting on weekends. I don't see it as work. It's kind of a hobby now, and it's fun."

The Word Plagiarism

"How did this go off the rails?" That question began his new blog's opening post, which detailed the collapse of the Poynter Romenesko media blog he had updated for more than a decade.

A small set of buzzwords and phrases included within the mid-November post sparingly tell the tale: changes to the site, traffic decline, 12 year itch, retirement, doing a media blog on my own, "semi-retirement," cross post items to Poynter, odd arrangement, smelling bait and switch, the word plagiarism, response was overwhelmingly supportive, called my father, "I resigned from Poynter yesterday," they were still using my name, cease and desist, Romenesko+ became MediaWire.

It is his most-commented post so far. "When I wrote that very first post explaining what went down and people saw there was a lot going on and had been a lot going on prior to that, just putting that out helped things die down," he said. "For me and for readers, I wanted to close the book on that. I'm certainly looking ahead, not back."

He said he has been heartened by the high traffic, the enormous level of interactivity, and the longtime readers who have followed him to his new web home.

One of those readers is Michael Koretzky, a journalist currently serving as director of NYC12, the Spring College Media Convention hosted by the College Media Association.

"I wasn't outraged by the Poynter-Romenesko dispute because I never could grasp how that relationship started in the first place," said Koretzky. "Poynter always reminds me of Mater Christie, the Catholic school I attended in fourth and fifth grades -- the education was so much better, but the rules were so much stricter. Romenesko never seemed a good fit for that. Just look at the pictures of the Poynter staff in their tiny little mugshots and compare them to photos of Jim. He looks like a serial killer next to their smiley faces. Jim's site looks like he writes-- it's simple, easy to read, and doesn't try to be more than it is."

A Whole New Game

It is clear the "dean of media bloggers" has once again found his swing. He is blogging with a renewed vibrancy and candor. He's inserting more of his personal voice into posts, including periodic giggly headlines and other dollops of dry wit. The writing overall is indicative of a man who is enjoying what he is doing.

Building off the site design by Jonathan Liss, he has also created a more visual reader experience. The blog regularly features videos, screenshots, headshots, Creative Commons standbys, and primary documents that add liveliness to the scroll-and-browse proceedings. Romenesko said he particularly enjoyed posting a recent quirky photo showing Stephen Colbert towering over NPR "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross.

Most exciting, he is again delivering scores of shorter posts. They entice readers to scan and click on outbound links without getting lost in the permalinked purgatory of Poynter's MediaWire.

In August, in tribute to Romenesko's Poynter years, leading editorial consultant and news veteran Carl Lavin tweeted, "Lessons from @romenesko: process is product, link to sources, exec & other job shuffles fascinate, volume matters, one person can=change."

Five months later, Lavin sees a number of positive changes within Romenesko's work. "In his post-Poynter product, Jim has expanded his sourcing and list of topics and seems to pay even more attention to packaging," he said. "If anything, there is now a broader range of topics -- all related to newsrooms, the people, processes and products that make them hum. Jim links to material about errors, headlines, job changes, and covers a wider variety of topics than other trade publications."

For example, a late January post focused on a recurring "Saturday Night Live" sketch featuring a loony Target employee. Romenesko likes the Kristen Wiig character and reached out to Target PR for the retailer's reaction. A day later, he ran part of a shocking column by a Dartmouth University student that graphically recounted alleged fraternity hazing activities he endured involving "vomit, urine, fecal matter, semen and rotten food products."

A week before that, he published a spirited post about the Fox News "PR Machine" that included journalists' stories of the network's heavy-handed media relations tactics. "I would not have done [the Fox News post] in the old days," Romenesko said. "Now, I can set my own rules. I don't have someone saying you should put quotation marks here and commas there. It's a whole new game."

Absolutely Huge Traffic

For Romenesko, the game now includes new competition: MediaWire, the blog that used to bear his name. "I know they get a lot of the same tips that I do," he said. "For example, when Halifax Media accidentally listed The New York Times papers on their site before the deal was done, I got that leak and Poynter got that leak. I just happened to post mine first and beat them by a half hour and because of that I had absolutely huge traffic, 1,000-plus people looking at the page at one time, which are numbers I never had at Poynter."

Andrew Beaujon, the current arts & entertainment editor for TBD.com in Washington D.C., is assuming a lead role with MediaWire later this month. Beaujon, recently dubbed the "new Romenesko," has the respect of the original. "He's a good reporter," said Romenesko. "I remember posting an investigation he did [with other TBD staffers], an assessment of all the Patch sites in Washington. It was a really good piece. I think he's solid. He has his fan base. I think he'll do well."

In a phone chat yesterday, Beaujon confirmed the admiration is mutual. "I've been a big fan of Jim Romenesko for a really long time," he said. "Not just because of the work, but also because he was a media blogger who really cast a wide net in terms of the people and the journalism he would feature. . . . [On his current site] he's doing a lot more reporting and it seems really energetic and engaged. He was a model for media reporters before and he's even more so now."

He said he does not view Romenesko as a competitor beyond the literal definition of them encompassing the same beat. "Jim is like a 100 times better sourced than I am," he said with a chuckle. "I'm going to have to build this beat very slowly. . . . I think more news is always good. I look forward to reading him as much as I always have, which is every day. I hope I'll be able to contribute something too."

Since the launch of JimRomenesko.com, the two blogs have regularly traded scoops and offered competing or complementary voices on the same issue or event. Two of Romenesko's biggest "gets" since going independent: New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane wrote him during the "Truth Vigilante" column brouhaha; and University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom emailed from "an undisclosed location" amid the fallout from his Atlantic article "Observations from 20 Years of Iowa Life."

Romenesko also now seems to finally get social media. He tweets, posts and interacts on Facebook, bases blog posts on Twitter and Facebook feedback, and has activated Facebook comments to appear below all posts along with regular site comments. (His Google+ presence is bare-bones. He views the platform as "a very lonely room.")

"I really like how his website has Facebook comment integration because pretty much everybody who interacts with Romenesko is involved with or has connections to journalism," said Doug Brown, a journalism master's student at Kent State University who was featured on JimRomenesko.com last month for his investigative reporting prowess. "It leads to some good discussion about important topics. His posts seem like he's leading a discussion, and because informed people are discussing, it works."

The Fringes and Edges

From the start, the site's tagline has stated boldly: "A Blog About Media and Other Things I'm Interested In." Those things include real estate, food and finance. He admits though that so far the tagline's second half has not panned out. Write-ups focused outside the realm of in-the-moment media news have gained minimal reader reaction and traffic.

As an example, he cited an early December post recounting his interactions two decades ago with a Brooklyn man nicknamed Full Force Frank who described himself as "one pissed-off psychopath!!!"

The 1,400-word reflection fleshes out Frank as one character within the larger fanzine culture Romenesko once worked within and helped introduce to mainstream journalists. It features letters Frank wrote to Romenesko, a pair of related articles Romenesko published, and an embedded video of Frank ranting and holding a gun.

It garnered no comments. "I thought it was pretty interesting," Romenesko said, laughing. "I think it maybe strayed too far to the fringes and edges."

Subsequently, for the most part, he has stuck to straightforward journalism and media news aggregation. It is a switch from his public stance prior to the Poynter plagiarism saga. In August, he referred to aggregation work as tedious and increasingly crowded with competitors. "I'm not going to be doing three-sentence summaries of other people's work," he told The New York Times about his independent site plans. "That's behind me."

Now, the future is less certain. When asked about his next step, he paused a bit and initially stumbled while searching for the right words. "I guess, I, I don't know," he said. "I'm not the kind of person who's going to sit in a chair and do nothing. As long as this is fun, I'm going to keep doing it."

Dan Reimold is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Tampa. He writes and presents frequently on the campus press and maintains the student journalism industry blog College Media Matters, affiliated with the Associated Collegiate Press. His first book, Sex and the University: Celebrity, Controversy, and a Student Journalism Revolution, was published in fall 2010 by Rutgers University Press.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Fulfilling pledges Speaker Christine Quinn made in last year's State of the City address, the Council passed two bills that will protect tenants of buildings facing foreclosure and add more transparency to contracts.

Don’t let your social media hypothesis dictate your conclusion

While neither marketing nor social media are sciences, one needs to use scientific principles to be most effective when it comes to both branding and prospecting online. It doesn’t take an Einstein to succeed in social media marketing, but to does take a scientist. Are you rigorously collecting metrics and data  to see if what you’re doing is resulting in sales conversions or extending your brand or are you relying on things you’ve learned from The Secret? Is your social media marketing campaign relying too much on magical realism, the power of positive thinking, and general superstition?

Or, are you so confident in your social media marketing plan that you really don’t care what your experiment says? That no matter how little pick-up you get in the media or no matter how few followers you garner or how little engagement, it isn’t your fault but must be because the market’s not ready for you or because you knew that social media marketing wasn’t effective anyway.

Well, that’s just bad science.

If you want to be an effective scientist, it is essential that you allow the results of your experiments — your observations — to speak for themselves.  While having a hypothesis going into the lab is always part one, allowing the empirical data to realign or even contradict your initial predictions is essential. That said, it’s hard on the ego to see something fail. It’s even harder to take the data as it comes and turn it into something useful in the end. This is how innovation happens, of course; and this is how scientific breakthroughs happen, too: not incrementally but in finding order in the chaos of unpredicted results.

There is a lot of bad science in social media marketing. Even a long decade after the Cluetrain Manifesto brought us the 95 theses that taught us that markets are conversations and that brands don’t own their brands anymore — a hypothesis that has proven itself prophetic — there are still many brands that have adopted blogs and social networks simply as new broadcast channels and have simply used social media as a handy way of listening in on the rude thing that people are saying about them.

Science is about testing and retesting and being willing to cut loose any and all processes that prove ineffective and moving those resources elsewhere

Science is about testing. Testing and retesting and being willing and able to cut loose any and all processes that prove ineffective and moving those resources into things that either work outright or show general promise. It is about not being attached to outcome. Finally, it is also about sticking to your guns and powering through on your commitment to seeing your experiments and your tests through. There are too many ghost towns littering social media that are the direct result of abandoned experiments, abandoned dreams — actually, more often, they succumbed to a crisis of faith.

The advertising industry has already adopted science and testing, but not because they wanted to. These were not men who had faith in science — they thought that advertising was an art. While early online marketing started to make advertising nervous, it wasn’t until Google launched AdWords that advertising began to evolve from art to science. The same thing is happening to direct marketing. From A/B testing to sophisticated engagement metrics, the science of advertising and marketing is becoming more de facto than fringe.

PR as the last bastion of magical thinking

PR is the last bastion of The Secret, the last bastion of superstition and magical thinking. The last business communication vocation that struggles against the harsh accountability of hard science, the cruel nakedness of quantitative metrics over the soft fuzzies of qualitative metrics.

Just because you’ve adopted social media doesn’t mean you’re modern. It is strangely possible to map your 19th century PR strategies onto a 21st century media platform without missing a beat. Take responsibility for your campaigns and do not let your hunches and experience dictate your successes and failures — let the data inform you and when it informs you that you’re just spinning your wheels, it is essential to do whatever it takes to adjust your campaign to maximize performance, amplify influence, and optimize for conversions.

Everything else is just doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, a sure sign of insanity — or so said none other than Albert Einstein.Chris Abraham is a partner in Socialmedia.biz and co-founder and principal of Abraham Harrison LLC, an international consulting group with specialties in online word-of-mouth/conversation marketing and online business & technology strategy advising. See his profile, contact Chris via email, Twitter, or leave a comment below.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported.

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung.

1. Report: Facebook's IPO to start at $5 billion (paidContent)



2. Barnes & Noble faces setback in Microsoft antitrust complaint (ars technica)



3. Hulu: We pay our content partners more than Netflix (AdAge Digital)



4. Yahoo! News hires its first White House correspondent (Yahoo! News)



5. New iPad app aggregates only long-form journalism (Poynter)



6. How an iPad app is making video more immersive (Guardian Beta)



7. Open-source Weave liberates data for journalists, citizens (Nieman Lab)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

The state of technology today means that nearly every village in the developing world could have someone -- a local changemaker -- who broadcasts his or her issues to the world. It's commonplace today to hear people say the world is flooded with content and that "everyone" can now be a producer.

At every community video training that Video Volunteers conducts for people from marginalized communities in India, more and more people are showing up with $15 Chinese-made video-enabled cell phones. It's now possible for rural people without data connections to send tweets via SMS. In India, the government has ambitious programs to bring the Internet into the villages.

Everything seems set for a mass of content to be coming out of rural areas -- which brings us to our problem: the fact that it is not.

The mere presence of information technology, like the 800 million cell phone connections in India, does not ensure local content creation. If you search the names of most remote Indian villages on YouTube, nothing will appear. If you search them on Google itself, never mind YouTube, most of what appears is raw government data. Content is produced by a small group of people, and the world's poor, in particular, are producing virtually zero digital content. Content continues to be made by the "drivers" for the "driven."

Video Volunteers is seeking to change this one-sided status quo; we're posing as a question the statement with which I started this post: What would it take for every village in the developing world to have someone -- a local changemaker -- who broadcasts that village's issues to the world? How can one provide the training, support and human connection for some of the world's most underprivileged communities to feel that their voice matters?

Over the last year, we've re-strategized our programs and revamped our business model in the search for a truly scalable model of community media. As part of a 4-part series, I'll be sharing what we've done over the last year, our experiences, and what we've learned. This has relevance to people interested in numerous issues, from improving the quality of journalism, to understanding how communications between government and its citizens can be two-way rather than one way, and increasing the quantum of good ideas the world has for tackling poverty.

In this post, Part 1, I'll be giving a basic introduction to IndiaUnheard, our flagship rural feature service. In Part 2, I will share what we learned in 2011 on how to make community media a sustainable enterprise. Part 3 details our distribution plans and strategies to earn revenue from the mainstream media. Part 4 looks toward the future.

A network of community correspondents

IndiaUnheard is Video Volunteers' network of community correspondents. In February 2011, we took in our second batch of IndiaUnheard community correspondents, bringing the total number of community correspondents to 52, 45 of which are still with us. They now cover 24 states in India and 45 districts.

The basic model is as follows:

• We recruit grassroots activists through a network of social movements and NGOs (non-governmental organization.)

• The basic criterion is that the candidates be economically poor and also have a history of volunteerism and a strong sense of belonging to their community. This is to ensure that they'll stay committed to producing the videos of the stories their communities say need to be told.

• We only work with socially marginalized and oppressed communities -- Dalit, Tribal, religious and sexual minorities, and women.

• We train them for two weeks at an intensive training camp in video activism, journalism ethics, and television news-style production.

• We give them each a low-cost HD video camera. Cisco has recently donated 500 of them, and we are very excited.

• They return to their villages and produce at least two videos a month.

• They come up with stories from their own village and in neighboring villages in their district.

• They each work with a mentor in the Video Volunteers office. Every senior staff member mentors 5-7 community producers, advising them once a week by phone on their stories.

• They shoot their stories, go to an Internet cafe, and transfer the footage to DVD, which they snail-mail us to our office in Goa.

• It's an entrepreneurial model where they are paid on a per-video basis. We pay them what we know the Indian media pays its stringers, or its local freelance reporters.
  A team of editors in the office edit the stories.

• They are then posted on our "website:"http://www.indiaunheard.videovolunteers.org where we broadcast one video a day, accompanied by an article, which is generally written by a research intern.

Once the video is online, the community correspondent can download it from the Internet and start using it to get an impact in her village. Meanwhile, from our office, we can start the next level of distribution to mainstream media and other NGOs.

In the longer term, this low-cost, innovative model is a way for every village in the developing world to have someone trained to use the latest technologies to advocate for their rights. There are now video-enabled cell phones in all corners of the world, and a model like IndiaUnheard can enable these technologies to be used to capture human rights violations and bring them to the attention of the world.

Here's a video compiling different sound bites from the community correspondents. You can watch more videos here.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series, in which we'll discuss what we've learned about what makes community media a sustainable enterprise.

Just over two years ago, comedian Marc Maron was out of a job, couldn't get standup gigs and was going through a debilitating divorce that had put him in debt.

With "nothing to lose," as he put it, he launched the WTF podcast, by sneaking into the New York offices of Air America radio, from which he'd just been fired.

Nearly 250 episodes later, WTF gets more than 2.75 million downloads per month, has multiple sponsors, and has helped sell out Maron's live shows in Seattle and San Francisco.

"I couldn't get club work at all. Now I can work most weekends if I want," Maron told me this month in one of two telephone interviews, first from his home in Los Angeles, then from a hotel in Atlanta, where he was preparing for a show. (You can listen to much of the audio from the calls here.)

"It doesn't cost much to do a podcast," Maron said. "I did it out of desperation and passion, and it sort of blossomed into this."

Connecting With Fans -- and Famous Guests

On his podcast, Maron is raw and genuine. He curses (the show starts with variations on the words that "WTF" stands for) and reveals compulsions, desires, details of his sex life and his former cocaine addiction, and peccadilloes such as disdain for Whole Foods, from which he said on the show he has shoplifted Stevia.

He also gets his guests to open up with rare frankness. The aging but lucid Jonathan Winters revealed intimate family details and his psychiatric institutionalization. "Mad Men" star Jon Hamm talked about sex and his perceptions of the industry. Comedians Russell Brand and Robin Williams talked about their own struggles with addiction.

"It was just me and Robin. There was no one there, at his house. And it's not video. Audio is very intimate," Maron said. "When you're sitting there talking with somebody for a long time, eventually the pretenses kind of fall away."

After a dozen episodes in New York, Maron returned to his home in Los Angeles, and started producing WTF in his garage along with a producer who co-owns the show. Maron got guidance from NPR personality Jesse Thorn.

In the garage, he speaks to famous comedians like Steven Wright, Carlos Mencia and Conan O'Brien, who has frequently had Maron on his TV shows. Maron visited Chris Rock in his New York office, Zach Galifinakis on the set of a movie he was shooting in New Mexico, and does live WTFs with a mix of entertainers.

Early episodes were a combination of Maron's rants and phone interviews with comedian friends such as Patton Oswalt and John Oliver. The show then featured fake guests, comedic bits, Maron's mom and dad, a former girlfriend, and a visit to Maron's native New Mexico, where he chatted up an elementary school friend who has cerebral palsy.

Maron believes a lot of WTF's success comes from the relationship he cultivates with listeners. The show resonates with high school students and 70-year-olds alike, Maron said. Many of them email him about the ways he's inspired them to deal with their own "struggles of being alive."

In turn, they want to give back, whether it's buying a T-shirt from WTFpod.com, using a discount code from one of the ads on the show, or coming to see him live.

"Every week I get mailbox full of gifts and cards," Maron said. "People bake things, bring things."

The Accidental Entrepreneur

Performers like Maria Bamford and Jim Norton brought bumps in audience by telling their fans on Twitter and elsewhere to tune in. Interviews with stars like O'Brien, Williams, Ben Stiller, Dane Cook, and a two-parter with Judd Apatow got press mentions or were promoted atop the iTunes store with "billboards," graphics that Maron and his producer created and sent to Apple.

"iTunes is thrilled to have anybody who knows how to do these, any professionals. They like being involved with people who do a good product," Maron said.

WTF has sold shows to public radio via the PRX radio exchange. Maron has appeared on NPR's "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me," been praised by Ira Glass, and profiled in publications such as Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and The New York Times.

And, he is very involved in the show's workings. He still books his own guests, tries to answer every email, and handles the "merch" sold on his site, such as T-shirts and mugs. His producer handles the editing and other technical and business details.

They've got partnership deals with outfits such as Libsyn, a podcast maker that has built WTF's Apple app and a revamped Android one being released any day. A company called Tunecorps helps syndicate the show to various outlets.

They'll soon be releasing a DVD of the first 100 episodes on mp3, Maron said.

Sponsors, which include Audible.com, Stamps.com, the adult toy site AdamandEve.com, and shows on Comedy Central and HBO, pay $1,300 to $15,000 per episode, Maron said, to get his sardonic spiel about them on the show.

He only takes ads from sponsors he believes in, he said. "I didn't want anyone to tell me what I could and couldn't do."

His first sponsor was JustCoffee.coop, for which he created the tag line, "Pow! I just crapped my pants," and which gives him 10 percent of every sale made when someone puts in the WTF code on their website. The company created a blend in his honor.

Maron said that sponsorship "was the first time" he realized the power he could wield.

"Once I started plugging Just Coffee and moving people toward it with a promotion code, the owners were like, 'Oh, my God, you just changed our business,'" Maron said.

Things haven't gone according to plan, though -- mainly because there wasn't one.

"I'm not a planner, a businessman. I am very easily overwhelmed. I didn't know this was going to happen, what was going to be involved." Above all, Maron said, the key to his success as an accidental entrepreneur is that, "I didn't quit. I did the best I could."

He joked to Jesse Thorn on one episode that he could teach a seminar on all this: "How to Make Panic Into Money."

Lessons From WTF's Success

With two decades in comedy, Maron, now 48, had some rare advantages in launching his show. But there are lessons for anyone trying to make a go of podcasting:

1. Be consistent. Pick a schedule and stick to it. Develop a theme and a tone, and stick to those as well. WTF goes live every Monday and Thursday "like clockwork," Maron said.
2. Cultivate a community and be responsive. Answer emails, tweet, be on Facebook. Tune in to what people are saying and respond during the show. Maron does all these things.
3. Seize opportunities. Maron booked Chelsea Handler when he bumped into her at a doctor's office, and Jon Hamm while the actor was "hanging around" a club.
4. Don't give up. Be persistent. It took a long time to book Williams, and Maron had to go through multiple handlers.
5. Produce your show in a professional manner -- even if you're working from a garage. Maron uses two Shure SM7 microphones plugged into into a Samson MDR6 mixer that feeds into Garage Band software on his laptop. On the road he uses a Zoom H4n mixer with two Blue Encore 200 mics.
6. Partner with people who will handle things you're not good at. In Maron's case, that's technology, editing and some of the business aspects.
7. Try to cut deals with other outfits to handle what they can, such as distribution, e-commerce and syndication. Maron said Libsyn didn't charge to create the apps, and takes a cut on every sale.
8. Have multiple revenue streams. WTF gets the most revenue from advertising. The premium versions of its apps offer access to archived episodes and specials such as outtakes or special recordings. Merchandise is one more stream, and donations another.
9. Use the podcast to market live shows and get an audience to them.

All photos courtesy of WTFPod.com

An award-winning former managing editor at ABCNews.com and an MBA (with honors), Dorian Benkoil handles marketing and sales strategies for MediaShift, and is the business columnist for the site. He is SVP at Teeming Media, a strategic media consultancy focused on attracting, engaging, and activating communities through digital media. He tweets at @dbenk and you can Circle him on Google+.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Ukraine has a high number of HIV infected people. To address this problem private Ukrainian Charity Elena Pinchuk ANTIAIDS foundation in partnership with the Ukrainian office of Google launched the news social service maps.antiaids.org on December 1, 2011, the World Aids Day.  The new service will help Ukrainian Internet users easier and faster to find the sites of HIV testing in their region as well as condom vending machines.

The web-site of ANTIAIDS foundation reported that in the framework of the project for the fist time in Ukraine a database 927 sites of HIV testing was created.

The interactive map shows not only the address of a particular site but also telephone numbers and the information about business hours. It also lists whether the site is unanimous or a person needs to present the ID. The database includes 173 sites of fast testing where a person can get the results in 15-20 minutes.

In addition, the HIV Testing Sites map service contains a FAQ section where a user can find all the information necessary for HIV testing such as how long to wait for a test results, is it possible to receive the results via e-mail or telephone, how much it will cots, what is the procedure of the testing and how to interpret the result, what to do if the results are positive or negative.

All this information is available not only in Internet but also on HIV/AIDS national hotline.

The condoms wending machines map helps people of major Ukrainian cities to find the nearest machine and to receive the instructions on how to use it. The advantages of the machines are speed and simplicity and that people can purchase the condoms anonymously, without attracting attention of other people and without and interaction with shop assistance like in supermarkets or pharmacies, ANTIAIDS web-site reported.

According to Google Ukraine blog the future plan of the project includes implementing improved navigation map and preparation of the mobile version of the service.

Written by Maryna Reshetnyak
· comments (0)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

The 3rd “Hacio’r Iaith” (Hacking the Language) was hosted by the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies of Aberystwyth University in Wales on Saturday the 28th of January 2012. Hacio’r Laith is an open conference, and is a meeting place for those who are passionate about technology, new media, and the Welsh language. A large number of participants joined to learn and discuss the latest developments in their fields.

The event was in unconference format where idea sharing, demonstrations and practical sessions were all conducted in Welsh language. The schedules were user-generated, which means that anyone could take part and talk about a subject of their interest.

The subjects discussed included local journalism in the digital age, art and culture online, campaigning, e-books, and developing free software for the Welsh language.

Rhys liveblogged the event (in Welsh language). Here is a summary:

What worked?

Better range of subjects than previous years.

What did not work?

Need more grid

Too cold in some rooms

Not enough tea and coffee

Free Wi weak in some rooms

(translated by machine language)

Hacio'r Laith Conference. Image by Flickr user Lestyn Hughes. CC BY-NC-SA

Here is a storify link (in Welsh language) compiled by Bryn Salisbury describing the reactions of Twitter users on this event.

Carl Morris wrote in the forum blog:

Thanks to all who came to participate in the third Hacio'r Iaith in Aberystwyth yesterday! Thanks also to the sponsors for making this year's admission and food free.

There are more posts to come for the event, including notes, videos and so on.

Check the event schedule and Wiki for the details and here are photos in Flickr taken during the event.

You can find the recorded videos of the event here.

Written by Rezwan
· comments (0)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

The Social Enterprise Conference will be held Feb. 25-26 at Harvard.

  Guide to events & conferences for the coming month

Who would have guessed that February has become one of the busiest months of the year for social media, technology and marketing conferences? Look at the list of conferences below, which run the gamut from Women 2.0 Pitch to Vator Splash to Lift, Strata, TED, SMX West, Wisdom 2.0, the first SOBCon Europe and the year's first Social Media Strategies Summit. And don't forget Social Media Week, the multi-city global conference running Feb. 13-17.

For the full year, see our full Calendar of 2012 social media, tech and marketing conferences. And Socialbrite has our calendar of nonprofit and social change events for February.

Hope to see you at some of these! If you know of other must-attend events, please share by posting the information in the comments at the bottom.

Conference	Date	Place
February
Business Video Expo	Feb. 1-3	Miami
Video is emerging as a new type of corporate data that – when deployed in the right way – can make online meetings and corporate publishing more vital, vibrant and engaging than ever before. Business Video Expo will help you understand how to use evolving software and hardware solutions to transform your organization's approach to corporate communications – from the executive conference room to the employee desktop.
Innovative e-Marketing	Feb. 1-2	Barcelona, Spain
Reinforce your online presence and boost your brand and marketing activities through social media communities and effective email campaigns to reach your target audience, guarantee customer satisfaction and maximum ROI for an increased bottom line. Leading experts will address many of the issues facing the industry as well as look to the future to discuss the most important trends and developments.
SF MusicTech Summit X	Feb. 13	San Francisco
The summit brings together visionaries in the music/technology space, along with the best and brightest developers, entrepreneurs, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce.
Women 2.0 PITCH Conference	Feb. 14	Mountain View, Calif.
Learn from the leaders of successful high-growth startups and tech companies as they share best practices, growth strategies and disruptive product development stories.
RootsTech	Feb. 2-4	Salt Lake City, Utah
RootsTech is a leading-edge conference designed to bring technologists together with genealogists so they can learn from each other and find solutions to the challenges they face in family history research. Genealogists and family historians will discover emerging technologies to improve their family history research experience.
Vator Splash	Feb. 2	San Francisco
Splash is a single-track evening event and startup competition that gathers leading entrepreneurs, innovators, venture capitalists and angel investors across technology to inspire and energize the audience about entrepreneurship and innovation. Splash brings together high-caliber speakers who talk about how to build and scale great successful companies, how their industries are changing and the opportunities those changes are creating.
SoCon 12	Feb. 3-4	Atlanta
It's hard to ignore the enormous impact social media has had on the world. SoCon12 will explore these changes. Get connected with hundreds of professionals with diverse backgrounds as they attend the Southeast's premier social media networking event, now in its sixth year!
Social Fresh East	Feb. 6-7	Tampa, Fla.
Social Fresh East 2012 will be the first of a new focus for Social Fresh conferences. Join this conference for two days of advanced social media training from companies like Ford, RadioShack, Nordstrom and more.
Online Marketing Summit	Feb. 6-10	San Diego
Join more than 1,500 of your marketing peers as they share ideas, hear from expert practitioners and learn best practices in the areas of social media, demand generation, search, email, analytics, mobile, integrated marketing and more.
An Event Apart	Feb. 6-8	Atlanta
An Event Apart is an intensely educational two-day learning session for passionate practitioners of standards-based Web design. If you care about code as well as content, usability as well as design, An Event Apart is the conference you've been waiting for. Also coming to Seattle on April 2-4, Boston on June 18-20, Austin on July 9-11, Washington, DC, on Aug. 6-8, Chicago on Aug. 27-29 and San Francisco on Nov. 12-14.
SOBCon Europe	Feb. 7	Amsterdam
SOBCon is coming to Europe. SOBCon is the think tank of the social web where some of the best minds in the Internet space gather to present models, discuss insights, and determine best practices. SOBCon Europe is the European version focusing on business models for social responsibility and profit.
Enterprise 2.0 Summit	Feb. 7-8	London
The summit is an event organized by Kongress Media yearly since 2008. It is set up as a highly interactive gathering of Enterprise 2.0 and Social Business experts and practioneers in Europe. Its uniqueness is its intensive exchange of experiences and the practical insights and implications presented.
Social Media Strategies Summit	Feb. 7-9	Las Vegas
Social Media Strategies Summit has been designed to apply to a variety of industries. Six tracks are designed to focus on a particular industry. While tracks are organized by industry, attendees are encourage to move freely between tracks based on their individual learning objectives. Other SMSS events include SMSS Chicago , April 18-19; SMSS Miami , June 12-14, and SMSS London , Nov. 6-8.
Murmuration	Feb. 8	Franklin, Tenn.
Join Gigya, Radian6, ExactTarget, Moontoast and ISM at the Historic Franklin Theatre to share insights, technologies and strategies that are changing the social marketing landscape. Learn how these leading technologies are making social monitoring, commerce and campaign integration a manageable and profitable reality.
SES Conference & Expo	Feb. 9	San Diego
SES Conference & Expo is the leading global event series that educates delegates in search and social marketing, putting a special focus on tactics and best practices. SES Events provides instruction from the industry's top experts, including representatives from the search engines themselves. Other SES events include: SES London , Feb. 20-24, and SES New York , March 19-23.
Media That Matters	Feb. 10-11	Washington, DC
This year's theme, "Change for Good," features conversations about how independent social change filmmakers can execute integrated campaigns that are strategic, action-oriented and have enduring impact.
ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work	Feb. 11-15	Seattle
CSCW presents research in the design and use of technologies that affect groups, organizations and communities. CSCW encompasses both the technical and social challenges encountered when supporting collaboration. The development and application of new technologies continues to enable new ways of working together and coordinating activities.
O'Reilly Tools of Change	Feb. 13-15	New York
O'Reilly's TOC Conference is where the publishing and tech industries converge, as practitioners and executives from both camps share what they've learned from their successes and failures, explore ideas and join together to navigate publishing's ongoing transformation. TOC 2012 delivers a deft mix of the practical and the visionary to give attendees the tools and guidance they need to succeed — and the inspiration to lead change.
Cloud Connect	Feb. 13-16	Santa Clara, Calif.
Learn about the latest cloud technologies and platforms from thought leaders in Cloud Connect's comprehensive conference and see leading companies showcasing the latest cloud platforms, technologies and services.
Social Media For Government Communications	Feb. 13-16	Washington, DC
Hear the latest practical advice on using new media and traditional communication tools to engage your community, along with helpful tools, tips and techniques to get started.
Social Media Week	Feb. 13-17	Various
Social Media Week is a multi-city global conference connecting people, content and conversations around emerging trends in social and mobile media. Events take place in New York, Paris, Toronto, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Singapore, Tokyo, Miami, London, Hong Kong and elsewhere through a series of creative events that connect brands, marketers, media and public venues.
Pubcon Paradise	Feb. 14-15	Honolulu, Hawaii
Pubcon Paradise 2012 will offer a multiple-day look at the future of technology presented by many of the world's top speakers. This event will be an ambitious gathering of search and social media innovators and leading technology and online marketing visionaries charged with offering attendees valuable new ideas and solutions for their businesses.
The Startup Conference	Feb. 16	Seattle
The Startup Conference is a one-day conference for everyone considering launching a startup. It covers everything from raising angel money, finding co-founders, getting press from TechCrunch, how to launch and more. Join the startup competition and be selected to pitch on-stage in front of a panel of VCs.
OnMedia NYC	Feb. 21-22	New York
OnMedia is where cutting edge of Madison Avenue meets the best of Global Silicon Valley. This two-day executive event features New York's power players and top digital media CEOs, who engage in high-level debates on how the Internet is disrupting the world of media, marketing, advertising and branding. OnMedia also showcases the emerging entrepreneurial CEOs who are revolutionizing the way media is being created, distributed, consumed and analyzed.
Cloud Computing for DoD & Government	Feb. 21-23	Washington, DC
IDGA's third annual event is your opportunity to claim your place in the virtual world of DoD and federal government data storage. This time-critical event will emphasize how cloud computing can cost-effectively revolutionize the way your enterprise works.
Gravity Summit	Feb. 22	Washington, DC
The summit will bring together a lineup of sports and entertainment leaders and insiders to address social media marketing trends, innovations, tools and strategies now and in the future.
Intelligent Content	Feb. 22-24	Palm Springs, Calif.
Intelligent Content 2012 is an intimate, three-day intensive learning experience designed to help attendees understand what is required to create intelligent content: content designed to be structurally rich and semantically categorized, automatically discoverable, reusable, reconfigurable and adaptable to any future functionality.
Lift	Feb. 22-24	Geneva, Switzerland
Lift conferences are a series of events built around a community of pioneers who get together in Europe and Asia to explore the social implications of new technologies. Each event is a chance to turn innovation into opportunities by anticipating the major shifts ahead and to meet the people who drive them.
BlissDom	Feb. 23-25	Nashville, Tenn.
This conference is for women who find and express their bliss by publishing online. Speakers and panels will feature the best blogging, public relations and social media pros who'll be on hand to mentor new and old friends.
Computer-Assisted Reporting Conference	Feb. 23-26	St. Louis
In this annual conference devoted to computer-assisted reporting, come and learn about tools you need to dig deeper into stories and give readers and viewers the information they want. The CAR conference offers something for everyone, from beginners to those on the cutting edge of digital reporting. Sessions include the basics on using spreadsheets, databases and online mapping as well as the latest technological advances.
Wisdom 2.0	Feb. 23-26	Redwood City, Calif.
Join the founders of Facebook, PayPal, Zynga and other technology leaders along with wisdom teachers in this conference where the focus is on exploring how one can live mindfully and wisely and engage the great technologies of this age in ways that benefit us, our society and our world.
SuperConf	Feb. 24-25	Miami
SuperConf 2012 is where Web development & entrepreneurship converges. On Day 1, Startup Blast Off is where eight new companies launch their products to the public. On Day 2, the conference dives deeply into understanding user interface design, bleeding edge technology, marketing, business and building lasting relationships.
SearchFest	Feb. 24	Portland, Ore.
Industry experts and thought leaders from around the country will deliver in-depth presentations on topics including advanced search engine optimization, social media marketing, universal search, analytics, paid search marketing and much more.
Social Enterprise Conference	Feb. 25-26	Boston
This year's conference will feature two days of rich content at the Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. The Saturday schedule is designed for a smaller and more practitioner-focused audience, while the Sunday schedule will feature about 100 speakers with a more general focus with a Pitch for Change Competition and Career Fair.
Mobile World Congress	Feb 27-Mar 1	Barcelona, Spain
Mobile is enhancing and expanding education and thus, transforming the world. Mobile World Congress 2012 will celebrate the current state of mobile and offer a glimpse into where mobile has the potential to go next.
TED	Feb 27-Mar 2	Long Beach, Calif.
From dazzling technology and leading-edge science to the richest veins of human creativity and interconnection, TED 2012 will display remarkable speakers, new uses of music, extravagant use of underused senses, intricate choreography between speaker and screen, new ways of involving the audience, breakthroughs in animation, intense, campfire-style storytelling and some "spectacular surprises."
TEDActive	Feb 27-Mar 2	Palm Springs, Calif.
TEDActive is an opportunity to let your mind travel the world of ideas while watching the live-hosted TED 2012 program on screen in a comfortable, customizable space. When the talks are over, your conversations with other passionate people begin -- a chance to engage in inspiring discussions and projects.
Inbound Marketing Summit	Feb. 28-29	New York
The must-attend conference for digital, social and mobile marketing will have a mix of inspirational speakers like Chris Brogan, Laura Fitton, Tim Hayden and Barry Libert, cutting edge content and real-world case studies. IMS is where innovative marketing and media professionals meet face to face, participate in sessions and network with their peers. IMS will also take place June 12-13 in San Francisco and Oct. 24-24 in Boston.
Search Marketing Expo – SMX West	Feb 28-Mar 1	San Jose, Calif.
Attend SMX West for the exceptional content, invaluable connections and essential conveniences. Dramatically increase the number of people who come to your site with ROI-enhancing paid search advertising and search engine optimization techniques and best practices.
Strata Conference	Feb 28-Mar 1	Santa Clara, Calif.
Strata Conference is the leading event for the people and technology driving the data revolution. The home of data science, Strata brings together practitioners, researchers, IT leaders and entrepreneurs to discuss big data, Hadoop, analytics, visualization and data markets.
Digiday Agency	Feb. 29	Los Angeles
This conference from Digiday Agency  will address the biggest issues and challenges digital agencies and marketers face today across the buying spectrum. This year's theme is "Retooling for the Future."

JD Lasica is founder of Socialmedia.biz. We work with large companies and nonprofits on social media strategies and campaigns. See JD's business profile, contact him or leave a comment.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

By Robert Niles: Newspapers and book publishers could learn some valuable lessons from one another. Unfortunately, it appears that the book industry's going to make the same costly mistakes as the newspaper industry did, instead. I thought again that as I read the New York Times' story about Barnes & Noble from last weekend, The Bookstore's Last Stand. The Times wrote of the publishing industry's hope that Barnes & Noble will be able to stand up to the challenge from Amazon.com, preserving a major retailer where their companies' products are king. Like many struggling businesses, book publishers are cutting costs and trimming work forces. Yes, electronic books are booming, sometimes profitably, but not many publishers want e-books to dominate print books. Amazon’s chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, wants to cut out the middleman — that is, traditional publishers — by publishing e-books directly. Which is why Barnes & Noble, once viewed as the brutal capitalist of the book trade, now seems so crucial to that industry’s future. Sure, you can buy bestsellers at Walmart and potboilers at the supermarket. But in many locales, Barnes & Noble is the only retailer offering a wide selection of books. If something were to happen to Barnes & Noble, if it were merely to scale back its ambitions, Amazon could become even more powerful and — well, the very thought makes publishers queasy. If Barnes & Noble's future is tied to that of the print book publishing houses, then Barnes & Noble is as doomed as Borders, Crown Books and the other brick-and-mortar booksellers that have proceeded it into oblivion. The Nook alone will not save Barnes & Noble's business because the change that is roiling the publishing business today - whether it be for books or for newspapers - is not simply a transition from printed media to digital. It's a transition from a marketplace where information was controlled by a few gatekeepers to one where anyone may offer their content to a mass audience. This isn't about eBooks versus printed books. It's about a book industry where supply is controlled by a few publishing houses or one where supply is opened to all who wish to publish something. In short, it's not the medium; it's the market. If your business model is based upon controlling access to the information marketplace, you're doomed. If your business model is based instead upon enabling and expanding access to the market, you have a chance of succeeding. And that is what has the book industry scared.

New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly faces calls for increased police oversight after revelations about his participation in an anti-Muslim video that was used to train officers.

TileMill, the free and open-source design studio for creating beautiful web maps, is now available for download on Windows. With the latest release, the map-making tool is fully operational on the three leading operating systems: Windows, Mac, and Linux. With Windows still dominating the marketplace, this is a huge development that will open the door to many more users being able to use TileMill to make custom maps.

This was possible because Node.js, the blazingly fast open-source software that's at the core of TileMill, recently gained Windows support.

Quick Start

To get started making custom maps with Tilemill, download the latest release and follow the installer directions to quickly get set up on any Windows XP, Vista, or 7 computer. TileMill is a desktop application that you can integrate into existing GIS workflows or use on its own as a design tool. Take the tour to see what features it offers, and check out documentation for details on getting started designing maps.

A 20-Minute Crash Course in TileMill

We also just published a new crash course for TileMill that covers the entire map making process -- from preparing data to publishing a map online -- in short, easy-to-follow tutorials. This is a hands-on introduction, walking through the four main steps for making interactive maps. In roughly 20 minutes, you will have created your first map in TileMill while touching upon the four critical aspects of a typical project.

Along with some introductory information about how to use and maximize making maps with TileMiill, the crash course walks through:

1. Importing a basic spreadsheet
2. Styling a basic point map
3. Adding tooltips and legends
4. Exporting maps and sharing them on the web

Community support

If you have a question or problem that isn't covered in the help documentation, or have other feedback, start a conversation with us in the support forum. For updates on new documentation and other news, watch the MapBox blog and follow us @MapBox on Twitter.

The best stories across the web on journalism and digital education

1. Stanford, Columbia share $30 million digital-media gift (Chronicle of Philanthropy)



2. Apple's new iBooks won't school college bookstores any time soon (Wired)



3. Knight Center course teaches journalists in digital world how to cover disasters, crises (Knight Center)



4. The forgotten role of journalists in journalism research (The Media Online)



5. 5 misconceptions of blended and online learning (TeachHUB)



6. Free online courses from elite colleges (Inside Higher Ed)

#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;} /* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */

Get the weekly Journalism Education Roundup email from MediaShift

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung.

1. Former Cosmo editor gives $30M to start media innovation center at Stanford, Columbia (Poynter)



2. Three founders leave Demand Media, operator of eHow (paidContent)



3. NBC to stream Super Bowl on web (All Things D)



4. Obama shines in Google Plus hangout  (Lost Remote)



5. Twitter CEO talks censorship, Google and ads (All Things D)



6. Mass. lawmaker floats mobile privacy bill (Online Media Daily)



7. The Daily after one year: the lessons learned (Digiday)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Local foundations are becoming key players in the emerging local news ecosystem by funding news and information projects or creating their own.

Knowing that, the Knight Foundation has distributed more than $16 million to 85 challenge winners to develop projects that inform and engage local communities.

The Community Information Challenge focuses on community or place-based foundations because Knight believes these foundations are well-positioned to help meet core community needs. Traditional needs include education, environment and health. As traditional news media has diminished, community and other place-based foundations are stepping in to help assure healthy information flows in their communities. Round V of the challenge is now open with applications due no later than Feb. 27.

Here's a look at some of the projects that have attracted community foundation support through the Knight Community Information Challenge.

1. Community Archive

This is a repository for important information and documents, posted online so they can be available to the entire community. For example, minutes of the school board or city council meetings might be posted, or historical documents or census information -- any type of information that might prove useful to citizens. The Foundation for the Carolinas created one called Thought Box Charlotte. The Black Hills Community Foundation project, the Black Hills Knowledge Network, is being produced in partnership with local libraries.

2. Local Action Center

These sites also provide important community information, but they seek to enable people to take action as well. For example, Grow Western New York is a project of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, and it is seeking to connect people with volunteer opportunities and other ways to help improve and enjoy the local environment. The Park City Community Foundation created Park City Green so residents could assess their impact on the local environment, including their water usage.

3. Contest

Contests are a great way to spark public interest and bring new voices into the mix. Minnesota Idea Open holds an annual contest to address an issue of public concern -- in 2011 the contest focused on water and there were more than 100 entries of ideas for improving water quality. More than 10,000 Minnesotans voted in the finals. The winning entry, Farmwise, will engage experienced and retired farmers in helping active farmers do more to protect water quality and supplies. The Open is sponsored by the Minnesota Foundation.

4. Mobile

These days, not everyone is accessing the web on a computer. It may be more effective to reach some groups -- like young people -- with a mobile project. For example, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation is partnering with the non-profit Voto Latino to develop an app that makes it easy for users to register to vote. In 2010, the California Community Foundation was part of a similar project that encouraged young Hispanics to be counted in the U.S. Census.

5. Data

Sometimes the numbers -- or visualizations of the numbers, like maps -- tell the story better than a conventional narrative. Three foundations in the latest round of Knight Community Information Challenge winners are working with data and experimenting with ways to engage people in data about their neighborhoods and cities. These are the Denver Foundation, The Piton Foundation and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta.

6. Citizen Media

Local citizens don't have to be passive readers of news and information -- they can create their own. The Grand Rapids Community Foundation helped create The Rapidian, a lively citizen journalism site that has received national recognition. In Akron, the Akron Community Foundation is developing a site called The Akronist. The foundation sponsors multimedia training for local residents, who then become contributors to the site.

Training young people to report on their lives and neighborhoods is a powerful way to elevate their voices in community conversations and even policy discussions. Our Life in the D, sponsored by the Skillman Foundation in Detroit, works with high school students to cover local neighborhoods and events.

7. Ecosystem Support

Some foundations are finding it makes more sense to support the emerging ecosystem of local news rather than creating a specific project. The Chicago Community Trust did research to find out more about dozens of local news startups in Chicago. Now, the Trust is supporting the start of a local advertising network for 15 of the sites to help make them more self-supporting without making direct grants.

Incourage Community Foundation, formerly the Community Foundation of South Wood County, has formed a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to test digital tools to help residents share information about key concerns, including jobs.

8. Student Journalism

Students and universities are playing large roles in the transformation of the local news ecosystem. With fewer professional journalists in traditional newsrooms, students can produce important stories. Often they partner with the traditional news outlets and their work is published on those sites.

The News Outlet, a project of Youngstown University supported by the Raymond John Wean Foundation, has proven to be an important source of investigative journalism. It's expanding to other university towns in Ohio.

9. Public broadcasting

Many public radio and television outlets are putting more focus on local news. So partnering with a local broadcast organization may be a way to reach more people with news and information on topics of importance to the foundation.

Hiki No, a project of the Hawaii Community Foundation, enables schools across the islands to produce weekly newscasts for PBS Hawaii stations.

The Alaska Community Foundation also partners with a public broadcast organization, Alaska Public Telecommunications. They have created Town Square 49, a website that hosts local blogs along with programming that fosters public discussion of important issues facing the state.

The Rhode Island Foundation, meanwhile, has partnered with a local NPR station to host a series of public forums that were broadcast on the radio and online.

10. Professional journalism

Non-profit news startups are covering important issues that used to get more thorough coverage from traditional news organizations. For example, Oklahoma Watch, sponsored by the Tulsa Community Foundation and several other foundations, as well as New Jersey Spotlight, sponsored by the Community Foundation of New Jersey, are having a significant impact.

What is the Knight Community Information Challenge looking for? So far, the contest has funded a wide variety of ideas -- and Knight is always looking for fresh approaches.

In general, Knight is looking for projects that help fill community information needs, foster community engagement, and help residents participate in the creation and sharing of news and information.

For more information on the Challenge, please see Knight's FAQ.

(Note: As a Knight circuit rider, I help foundations hone and implement their news and information projects.)

This is a cross-post from Knight Digital Media Center's News Leadership 3.0 blog. The News Leadership 3.0 blog is made possible by a grant to USC Annenberg from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Michele McLellan is a journalist and consultant who works on projects that help foster a healthy local news ecosystem. As senior leadership consultant for KDMC@USC, McLellan helped develop KDMC leadership programs in 2008-2011. She also blogs about leadership best practices at News Leadership 3.0. McLellan is also the founder of Block by Block, a network of small, entrepreneurial community news sites, and a Circuit Rider for the Knight Community Information Challenge, which encourages local foundations to support news and information projects.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Last month, the Crystal Cox verdict re-energized a debate among journalism's most passionate and articulate thought leaders and professionals by begging the question: Who is a journalist?

Just about anyone with a laptop or cell phone can use free technology to create quality media and reach audiences larger than any newspaper or television network. Indeed, we are all publishers now. But are we all journalists now, too?

Never has technology unraveled an industry so fast that its professionals no longer agree on what it is that they do. It's not surprising; the sharp line between journalist and non-journalist is so faded that few can see it anymore.

If someone happens to be at the right place at the right time and captures a significant event on his cell phone, it will be newsworthy to some audience. At the moment he tweets the image, does he magically transform from a bystander into a journalist? If he is an employee of The New York Times, most would have little trouble classifying him as a journalist. But if it also was his very first uploaded photo, then really what is the difference between the NY Times employee and the bystander? Who is the journalist?

Thought leader and colleague Dan Gillmor insists we've been asking the wrong question:

The way we frame this discussion is important. When anyone can publish, I'm often asked, who's a journalist, anyway? That's the wrong question, I believe. The vastly more relevant issue is this: What is journalism?

In other industries, the problem would resolve itself once the technological chaos subsided and a new world order emerged. Journalism doesn't have that luxury. The Crystal Cox case again highlighted what is at stake: the special legal protections that allow journalists to do their collective jobs. At the other end of the spectrum is the charming sentiment that everyone is a journalist.

One Less Journalist

In a recent popular article, GigaOm's Mathew Ingram  asked the question: "If we are all journalists, should we all be protected?"

I reject the premise. We are not all journalists. In fact, I may be the only remaining person in America who is not a journalist, despite making some of the same motions: I've been blogging since 1995 (when the creator of Wordpress was still in elementary school); I've written and published scores of papers and articles; I've worked for a few major media companies, and spent a few years on the faculty of the Cronkite School of Journalism. Yet I am certain that I am not a journalist.

Being formally educated in engineering, business and behavioral economics puts me about as far as you can get from the field of journalism. Perhaps for this very reason, my outsider's perspective might add some unique fuel to this debate.

First, I commend journalists on one unexpected bit of subtle collective behavior: Despite  witnessing the rapid demise of newspapers and broadcast news industries,  journalists -- far more than any profession -- have been particularly welcoming of the new class of content creators and publishers. Any other industry would have branded them as amateurs and interlopers -- blogging, tweeting or uploading on YouTube. Journalists have joined the newcomers in embracing new media, experimenting and extending journalism's frontiers without any class distinctions.

Other professions, especially those being affected by new technology, typically close ranks and erect many kinds of barriers to protect their closed societies from newcomers fast-tracked by technology.

Not so, with journalism. Journalists seem to be genuinely happy that technology allows everyone to participate in their craft.

But this virtue is also the heart of the problem.

Why does it matter?

Journalism and journalist: Many argue that the definitions don't matter. As long as my activities and their effects are the same as a professional journalist, and I am "committing an act of journalism," then I too am a journalist, they argue. Sooner or later, we either must agree on definitive answers or forever throw our hands up and declare: "It doesn't matter."

It matters. The Crystal Cox case reminds us that journalists need special protections, as a part of their work, to ensure their sources remain confidential. Occupy Wall Street represents countless examples where journalists are granted special access. Do we grant self-described "citizen journalists" access to the White House? Travel along with Air Force one?

As long as there needs to be special protections and privileges, it matters. As long as there is a need for standards of quality and ethics for journalists, it matters. And because it matters, we need to define "who is a journalist," and by logical extension define "what is journalism?"

Other Professions

As an engineer, I've seen my field(s) disrupted and again empowered by technology that is cheap, available and easy to use. There were loud objections to technologies in the hands of "non-engineers" (for instance, not everyone is thrilled with the prospects of journalists coding sophisticated software and web applications).

Despite the proliferation of easy-to-use tech tools, certain fields of engineering (as with medicine and law) are still subject to rigid standards and licensing in order to determine who can represent themselves as a member of these professions. We immediately can see the logic: Few people would want "citizen physicians" performing brain surgery, nor would we want merely any techie with a working knowledge of AutoCad to be building drawbridges or passenger planes.

In most cases, the professional standards are determined by the leaders and working professionals in these fields, and recommended to the licensing boards. All the certifications require academic degrees, rigorous exams, and a track record of apprentice-like work (e.g., residency) before one is granted the special rights and privileges that comes from being a recognized professional in these fields.

Why should the qualification of journalist be any less clear cut or less rigorous?

And yet, journalists seem to pride themselves on inclusiveness and lauding the category of citizen journalist.

Gillmor and his contemporaries stress the "acts of journalism" define the journalist. Intuitively, this seems to make perfect sense, but it certainly doesn't apply to any other field. As one person (Craig R) commented in response to Ingram's article: "Journalism is a trade, one that is learned through cadetships, training and study. I just painted my bedroom at home, that does not qualify me to be a painter."

And yet another (Rick Gregory) pointed out: "Short answer? We're not all journalists. Longer answer ... if the term covers everyone with a pulse it has no meaning."  

People from all sides of the debate seem to agree at least that some definitions are needed. Today there seem to be three camps, or "theories"  for trying to define journalism and the modern journalist.

The 'Infinite Monkeys' Theory

If I take enough video or photos, eventually I might capture something an audience might find newsworthy. For instance, if I am constantly shadowing the police with my camcorder rolling, I may capture an officer treating a suspect harshly -- fodder for a "caught on tape" abuse story. For the first 100 hours, I am just a annoying stalker, until I get that 30 seconds of video -- then am I a journalist? Before the first 100 hours, how is one to know the difference?

This camp maintains that the result is the defining evidence. If an accidental journalist happens to tweet important breaking news because his house happens to be in the flight path of a rescue mission, should he be afforded the same rights and protections as the professional journalist?

The emphasis of this theory is on the relatively skill-less talent of being at the right place and time -- blogging or taking enough video until you capture something noteworthy: pretty much the same strategy employed by anyone who has ever posted a cat video.

As journalists, perhaps you can set the bar a little higher?

The 'Magic Hat' Theory

While the Infinite Monkeys Theory defines the journalist only by the outcome of a relevant journalistic act, it does so regardless of the intent, the skills or work ethic. But very often we need to identify the journalist before the start of the journalistic act, or before the result is published.

New media technology has nearly eliminated the practical requirement that someone needs an affiliation with a publisher in order to be considered a journalist. Thus, anyone with a free WordPress account can "hang a shingle" and call themselves a journalist and publisher. Once this person puts on the magic hat of "journalist," or uses an injket to print a "press badge," how does one know the difference between the journalist and the non-journalist?

Once someone puts on the magic hat of journalist -- are they magically qualified to write about anything or anyone as an expert and with impunity?

Most other professions that affect the public's well-being have a higher bar to guard against self-described practitioners -- in order to maintain a higher quality of standards and ethics.

The citizen journalists camp is often with the Magic Hat Theory -- where anyone with a business card can call themselves a journalist.

As journalists, shouldn't the bar be a little higher?

The 'Anointed Priests' Theory

Here, the title of journalist is bestowed by the government or some other authority. From then on, every journalistic action is under special protections and enjoys special privileges.

I am pretty sure my journalist friends would quickly point out the First Amendment threats apparent in the Anointed Priests Theory. The prospects of having some committee or board dictate journalism would send some of them running to the Second Amendment to prevent this from happening. But these fears would be overstated. Being recognized by an "authority" as a journalist would not prevent anyone from creating content or publishing -- it would only determine who has special legal protections. And regardless of whether anyone wants this, by default, it is the way our system works today -- except that the authority is a legislature or a judge.

But the Anointed approach doesn't have to be a court, a government or even a small committee. Many other professions have formal peer review processes that serve the same purpose. The Bar association is a perfect example. The scientific community in almost any field has peer review systems that serve similar functions. Why not for journalism? Even bartenders and auto mechanics have some official requirements to pass before becoming a professional.

I get it. Even the remote possibility of blacklisting and censorship keeps journalists awake at night. But an official designation of some kind would also serve to provide a standard of ethics, integrity and quality -- giving the newcomers some standards and the courts a unified criteria for identifying journalists. As we were reminded recently, if journalists don't re-sharpen that line that separates the professional journalist from "other," then the courts will continue to do it for them.

We already have a model for peer reviewed "certification" for journalists. Most journalism schools are accredited by a board that's composed of journalism educators and professionals. They define the standards and requirements for graduating a student with a degree that says "journalism."

I am not suggesting that the journalism degree be the official legal designation for journalist. Arguably most of history's greatest journalists never had a journalism degree, but this was during an era where the publisher defined the journalist, when working for a newspaper, broadcast radio or TV network defined the journalist.

Today, journalists are no longer exclusively defined by their relationship to a publisher -- despite the many courts still clinging to this anachronistic definition. If journalism is "in the eye of the beholder" then soon the definition gets too diluted to have meaning. Journalists are still guardians and champions of freedom of the press. You should collectively, assertively and quickly define the profession of journalism. If not you, who else?

Image courtesy of Flickr user Lichfield Live.

A city-wide campaign warms New Yorkers away from for-profit education scams that can leave students in debt and without a job.

Last Thursday, Twitter announced that it would start censoring tweets by denying access to specific tweets in countries where those tweets would be illegal.  Naturally, this has caused a lot of concern online. 

Some see the announcement as a first step towards expanding into China in Twitter by complying with Beijing's compulsory, rigorous state censorship.  (Twitter's general counsel has denied this, saying the announcement “has nothing to do with China.”)

Others fear that it is somehow tied to the recent $300 million investment in Twitter by Saudi Prince Al-Waleed, and that he was flexing his capital muscle to quiet Twitter, which helped facilitate the Arab Spring and continues to threaten the stability of the region's authoritarian governments. (But take this theory with a grain of salt: Waleed owns less than four percent of Twitter, hardly enough to wield the kind of influence needed to implement censorship.)

The government of Thailand, where lese majeste laws are still enforced and those who call King Bhumibol Adulyadej anything other than a great guy risk prison time, is rather pleased with the new policy.  I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more vehemently anti-gay governments, for example Iran and Uganda, are warm to the idea too. The international gay community appears to be worried about the possibility, at least.

With all this potential censorship, the tweeting masses have been left wondering: What was Twitter thinking?

I've been chewing on this myself. My first response was much like that of the masses: alarm. But when you consider the ubiquity of censorship laws outside the U.S., Twitter's position is much more understandable.

After all, it's not just authoritarian countries in the Middle East and Asia that censor.  While the First Amendment keeps the U.S. (mostly) censorship-free, laws against speech are quite common abroad, even in Western nations.

For example, in Germany, I could be subject imprisonment for up to five years for tweeting that Federal President Christian Wulff is a horrible person.  In France, I couldn't tweet "I don't believe that the Holocaust happened" without running the risk of charges. In Britain, a tweet that violates a super-injunction could conceivably be cause for censorship.

As former Berkperson and current EFFer Jillian York writes on her blog:

...Twitter has two options in the event of a request: Fail to comply, and risk being blocked by the government in question, or comply (read: censor).  And if they have “boots on the ground”, so to speak, in the country in question?  No choice.

It seems unlikely that Twitter will be opening a Cairo office or a Beijing office any time soon.  But London, Paris, or Berlin?  In fact, Twitter's already in London, Paris would be a reasonable step, and a Berlin office is in the works.  And thus those foreign offices give their host nations leverage, should they request tweets be censored.

And Twitter already does censor tweets, as the EFF's Eva Galperin points out, and this new country-specific censoring in fact allows them to censor less:

Until now, when Twitter has taken down content, it has had to do so globally. So for example, if Twitter had received a court order to take down a tweet that is defamatory to Ataturk--which is illegal under Turkish law--the only way it could comply would be to take it down for everybody. Now Twitter has the capability to take down the tweet for people with IP addresses that indicate that they are in Turkey and leave it up everywhere else.

Galperin also notes that tweeters can use proxies and anonymizer networks (like Tor) to end run around the censors.

I'm a little leery of Galperin's argument about the policy meaning less censorship.  It's true that if Twitter uses exactly the same takedown criteria that it has before, but now tailored to the specific countries at issue, more people would see the tweets, therefore censorship would lessen. 

But with the ability to tailor censoring, I worry that censorship might become less appalling to Twitter staffers.  For example, if you've got a takedown request for a borderline tweet from Syria and a takedown would be worldwide, Twitter might be hesitant to censor it.  But if they could censor it only in Syria, Twitter might lose that hesitation.  Thus, Twitter might actually censor more often in frequency, if less broadly in scope.

I suspect such a concern may be why Galperin called upon Twitter users to "Keep Twitter honest." And Twitter is to be commended for giving the public a tool to do so: they've begun submitting takedown requests to Chilling Effects (a Berkman-affliated project), so we all can see who's asking for takedowns and why.

Further, as Matthew Battles at Harvard's MetaLab writes, the censored tweets won't just disappear – they'll be replaced by a notification that the tweet was taken down.  That notification may inspire curiosity about the censorship, and could in turn bring greater scrutiny upon the government behind the takedown.

I think the best way to handle Twitter's censorship going forward is via the old Reagan chestnut of "Trust, but verify." As York writes, "the company is doing its best in a tough situation," but she promises "I’ll be the first to raise hell if they screw up."  Given the rock and hard place between which Twitter finds itself, we should cut it some slack.

But if Twitter goes astray, all bets are off.

Arthur is the research attorney and editor for the Citizen Media Law Project at the Berkman Center and a correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor.  He tweets occasionally at @NominallyBright.

We’ve just made a small but important tweak to the way user comments work on our site.

As more and more people have started using EveryBlock to have conversations with neighbors, inevitably a few bad apples have started spoiling the fun. The amount of nonconstructive discussion hasn’t been horrible, but we’ve gotten enough feedback about it that we’ve decided to make it a priority.

So to encourage folks to stay courteous, we’ve added a slight barrier to commenting: a preview step. Before, when you posted a comment, it went live right away. Now, when you post a comment, you’ll see a preview of it, so that you can read it over before posting. We’re hoping this causes some folks to think twice before posting to make sure they’re being constructive and neighborly.

We want everyone to have a positive experience when talking with their neighbors on EveryBlock, and informative, friendly comments play a big part in making that happen. Look for more of these sorts of improvements from us in the near future, and let us know what ideas you have.

The following post is from Jessica Clark, who is the media strategist for the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), which produced the Localore competition.

From Fargo to Austin, and Boston to the Bay Area, 10 public stations across the country are now poised to ramp up their innovation capacity. They'll be incubating projects led by winners of the Localore competition -- announced today -- who include independent and station-based producers, distinguished documentary filmmakers, gamers, data journalists, and front-edge developers.

Localore, produced by the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), is a $2 million project that tasks independent producers with leading collaborative teams to invent new forms of reporting and storytelling. Localore's mantra is "go outside" -- their productions will reach beyond public media's core platforms and traditional audiences. More than $1 million comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to support the lead producers in developing 9-12 month projects with the stations, with additional funding from the MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Wyncote Foundation.

Localore is the second in a series of projects spearheaded by AIR that tap producers to reinvent public media, building on the legacy of the successful Makers Quest 2.0 project (MQ2). This time around, makers weren't the only ones submitting their big ideas. Stations were also invited to strut their stuff, on the Station Runway, where 61 of them posted short, evocative audio and video profiles to entice producers to collaborate with them.

The result was an unexpectedly moving portrait of a diverse industry seeking new talent and strategies to engage a broader public. Sparking broad interest, Localore.net has drawn in nearly 7,500 unique visitors since its launch in mid-September.

the winners

Working with a Selection Committee, AIR matched promising producers with stations and then made the final selections:

• Jennifer Brandel -- WBEZ, Chicago: Curious City: Let's Get Answers will prompt audience members to pose, rank and help to answer relevant questions about community and news topics through online and mobile tools. Designed to democratize editorial research and story selection, the project will make the reporting process transparent at every step, and surface key issues for further exploration.

• Anayansi Diaz-Cortes -- KCRW, Los Angeles: How do immigrants' ideas of self and place shift in an era of always-on communication? Multiplatform documentary Sonic Trace will explore the relationship of Latin American immigrants to their home communities. Diaz-Cortes will gather stories from both sides of the border, with a focus on three evocative places: "Tres Puntos" in L.A., Koreatown kitchens where Oaxacan cooks are rising in popularity, and a mobile recording booth in local food trucks.

• Julia Drapkin -- KVNF, Paonia, Colo.: iSeeChange is a crowdsourced reporting project that will draw from participants' everyday observations about shifts in the weather. Inspired by successful "citizen science" projects, Drapkin will elicit photos, quotes and art submitted by local ranchers, coal miners, and others vitally affected by environmental shifts -- showcasing debates about climate through a mobile documentary unit, weekly broadcasts, and multimedia explorations of each season.

• Ken Eklund -- Twin Cites Public Television, Minneapolis: What should today's high school seniors know before they head out on their own? This question will drive Get Real Ed, a participatory alternate reality game that asks users to provide real-world solutions for the nation's pressing dropout crisis. The game will revolve around five fictional "OpOuts" led by the strong-willed Edwina, whose interactions with participants will both shape the game's trajectory and prompt lively dialogue about the state of U.S. education.

• Delaney Hall -- KUT, Austin, Texas: Beyond Austin's much-documented music scene lie the "third places" where musicians regularly meet, perform and commune: front porches, backyards, garages, sidewalks and churches. Austin Music Map (AMM) is a collaborative documentary and performance series exploring Austin's diverse sonic subcultures, and offering users a digital map to discover and learn more about such spots. The project will culminate with a celebratory music festival.

• Todd Melby -- Prairie Public Broadcasting, Fargo, N.D.: Through embedded reporting from the oil patches and "mancamps" of North Dakota, Black Gold Boom will catalyze discussion about the local and national impacts of the region's rush to drill. An interactive site featuring multimedia portraits of workers who have streamed to the state and the families they left behind will accompany a related photo exhibit mounted in local businesses. Data-driven reporting and mapping of active oil wells will provide deeper context for individuals' stories.

• Erica Mu -- KALW, San Francisco: A roving crowdsourced storytelling project based in the Bay Area and Oakland, Pop-Up Radio aims to build connections between these disparate communities through a series of playful events and broadcasts. Mu will gather stories in 2-month cycles around six themes -- via a mobile recording booth, online, and in concert with community partners such as schools, youth media programs, libraries and barbershops.

• Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar -- WYSO, Yellow Springs, Ohio: These veteran documentary filmmakers and Dayton residents will produce a participatory documentary, examining how residents of Dayton -- one of America's "fastest dying cities" -- are reinventing themselves in a new and unstable economy. Producers will ask residents: "Who was I before the bottom fell out? What happened that changed my life? Who am I becoming, or trying to become now?"

• Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson (the Kitchen Sisters) -- KQED Radio and Television, San Francisco: Northern California is America's ground zero for innovation. Two of public media's most influential native institutions join forces to bring together a young, diverse collaborative team from inside and outside public media to bridge dynamic communities of invention in new ways. They'll tap the worlds of interactive media, Berkeley School of Information, transmedia documentarians, and young ethnic producers to create THE MAKING OF ... an exciting, yearlong initiative reflecting the universality of craft across culture, ethnicity, and socioeconomic divides.

• Val Wang -- WGBH, Boston: Planet Takeout highlights the role that Chinese restaurants play as vital crossroads between cultures in neighborhoods in Boston and beyond. This participatory, multiplatform documentary project aims to break down barriers between the Chinese immigrants running these hyperlocal establishments, and the diverse customers they serve, through mobile storytelling, face-to-face dialogues, and an interactive site documenting the restaurants' eclectic visual flavor.

A New Breed

These producers represent a "new breed," observes Localore Executive Editor Noland Walker, "one that can perhaps best be described as a 'skilled adaptor.'" They are willing to make sacrifices: to move away from their homes, and to bring together and lead a team of collaborators in a new way to make something that will benefit the station and local community.

Mounting this competition was just the first step -- now that the winners have been announced, the real work of reinvention begins. Producers will begin launching the projects in March, and we'll be tracking their progress on AIR's blog, across Twitter via the #Localore tag, and on Facebook.

Watch this space -- once things get rolling I'll be back with an update.

Jessica Clark is AIR's Media Strategist, and an internationally recognized reporter and expert on the transformation of public interest journalism. She writes regularly about public media innovation and policy for MediaShift.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung.

1. The Guardian expands open journalism experiment with new live blog (10,000 Words)



2. ProPublica will release its work in e-book form (The New York Times)

 

3. Kindle Fire takes over Android tablet market (Mediabytes)



4. Findings: Consumers use smartphones to browse, tablets to buy (Online Media News)



5. Graffiti artists take aim at Google's new privacy polices, SOPA (paidContent)



6. BuzzFeed's Ben Smith talks about writing for social web (Digiday)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Two and a half years ago, I co-founded Stroome, a collaborative online video editing and publishing platform and 2010 Knight News Challenge winner. There are a lot of uncertainties in the startup game. But one thing is for sure: When it comes to presenting your product to potential investors, customers and partners, you're always on stage.

We first unveiled our platform at USC Annenberg's pioneering Program for Online Communities in the fall of 2009. Nearly three years -- and probably a hundred presentations later -- we're still showing off our wares.

Recently, I was asked by Jason Nazar, founder of Docstoc and a big supporter of the L.A. entrepreneurial community, if I had any tips for startups regarding making a memorable -- strike that -- making a killer presentation.

A short, 3-minute video response can be found at the bottom of this post, but I thought I'd share some key takeaways with you here:

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

Every startup starts with a vision. You need to sell that vision. But before you even think about climbing on stage, you need to remember who you're talking to is just as important as what you're talking about. In other words, you need to know your audience.

If you're talking to investors, for example, talk about the investment. How big is the market? What percentage do you plan to capture? How long will it take to become profitable? How much money will it take to get there? How do you plan to spend that money? And perhaps the most anticipated question of all for any investor: "When will I get my money back?"

Market assessment, product placement and ROI -- that's what's on the mind of any Angel or VC during an investor pitch. Make sure you speak to those issues.

If it's a demo, show the product; don't talk about it. The focus of a product demonstration is different than an investor pitch. And so is the audience. A good way to structure a demo of your product is to address these three questions: 1) What's the market like now; 2) What does your product do (this is where you show the product if you have a prototype); and 3) How will the market/consumer behavior change (presumably for the better) when your product goes live?

Let's face it-- product demos are much sexier than investor pitches. They're also better attended. Investors, potential business partners, future employees, unsuspecting customers, the press-- all are typically in attendance. Which brings us to point two...

SPEAK IN BITE-SIZE CHUNKS

The easier it is for your presentation to be digested by your audience, the better. So you need to condense your message to as few words as possible. And if you plan to use slides, put those words -- and only those words -- on your slides. People tend to read the slides, not listen to you. And chances are your audience is dividing its time between you and that cell phone they're surreptitiously trying to hide from view anyway. So why not give them a "tweetable" moment, and get the focus back on you.

How, you ask? Limit the text on your slides to 140 characters. That's right, actually write the tweet on the slide.

Think about it. By writing a few choice words on your slide, you've just killed two birds with one stone. You've given the people in the room your pitch in a way they can remember it, and you've gotten them to push it out across the social web for you.

TELL A STORY THROUGH A NARRATIVE

I've talked about this in a previous post, but it's worth repeating. When you're presenting, all you are really doing is telling a story. And stories are composed of three parts: a beginning, a middle and an end.

The beginning is the setup. This is where you talk about the marketplace pain and how your product plans to assuage it.

The middle is the solution. This is where you actually show off your product in a demo. But be careful. Many presenters tend to get sidetracked here talking about the nuances of the product. Your audience is more interested in what problem your product is going to solve, not the nuts-and-bolts mechanics of how it works.

The end is your salvo. This is your final parting shot, your big finish. This is where you want to talk about the upcoming launch, make the financial "ask," wow your audience with your long-term vision.

Of course, every good story needs a villain. And if you have one -- maybe it's a competitor, a really big problem in the marketplace that has yet to be addressed, a previously insurmountable technical obstacle you've overcome -- my advice is to play it up. Don't skirt the big obstacles before you.

You're David; they're Goliath. So tell your audience how you're going to slay the giant. Whether it's a special tool set you've created, or a unique knowledge of the market that gives you an unfair advantage, you are the one who will solve this problem and save the day. Because at the end of the day, you are the hero of your story.

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

Don't fall into the trap that just because you know more than anyone else in the room about your business that you can wing it when you get up there. That's a recipe for disaster.

Even the most gifted actors have to know their lines. It's out of that constraint that confidence and comfort emerge. It's what makes their performance seem so natural and effortless. Knowing your "lines" can make you come off the same way. But the only way that's going to happen is if you practice.

DON'T RELY ON TECHNOLOGY

It will fail.

A FINAL THOUGHT

Don't worry, I'm not going to leave you with a hanging dongle (sorry, PC aficionados -- that's a Mac joke). Giving a killer presentation is within your grasp.

Just remember these five things and you'll knock 'em dead every time: 1) Know your audience; 2) have a compelling story; 3) tell that story succinctly; 4) tell it with the confidence that comes from practice; and 5) don't rely on bells and whistles.

Because in the end, you are the presentation, not what's on the screen behind you.

This article is the fifth of 10 video segments in which digital entrepreneur Tom Grasty talks about his experience building an Internet startup, and is part of a larger initiative sponsored by docstoc.videos, which features advice from small business owners who offer their views on how to launch a new business or grow your existing one altogether.

Need $40,000 to produce a local documentary? Just ask your audience.

That's what filmmaker Sam Mayfield did, for a film she's working on about last year's protests in Madison, Wis. In a blog post on January 13, she wrote:

We are currently trying to raise $40,000 of our $200,000 budget through Kickstarter, the online fundraising platform that facilitates grassroots investment. We set a target goal and must raise that amount or lose all pledged funds by the set deadline of 12 p.m., January 21. If we are successful, we'll join over 15,000 artists, filmmakers, activists and entrepreneurs who have collectively raised over $125 million using this innovative crowdfunding model.

As of this writing, Mayfield had raised $41,850. (Her campaign began December 27 -- that's more than $40,000 in less than 30 days.)

Sound too good to be true? Well, in some ways, it is -- Kickstarter and other so-called crowdfunding sites like IndieGoGo aren't a silver bullet, where you simply set up a web page asking for money, and the donations come rolling in. (If only it were so!) On the other hand, a lot of independent producers are finding tools like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo incredibly effective, prompting non-profit strategist and author Beth Kanter to recently ask, "Are Crowdfunding Platforms the new Patrons of Independent Media?"

These platforms have been kind to a number of producers throughout the public media community. For example, "The Sound of Young America's" Jesse Thorn, "State of the Re:Union's" Al Letson, and "Destination DIY's" Julie Sabatier have all used Kickstarter to raise money for their projects, ranging from $5,000 for video documentaries (Letson) to over $70,000 for a web series (Thorn). When filmmakers Pamela Yates and Paco de Onis wanted to make their documentary, "Granito: How to Nail a Dictator," eligible for an Oscar nomination -- which meant securing theatrical runs in New York and L.A., and creating a 35-millimeter print of the film -- they turned to Kickstarter for help, and exceeded their $30,000 fundraising goal; P.O.V. writes about the campaign here.

In other words, crowdfunding works. But not always, and not without a lot of work.

Promote, promote, promote

Promoting your Kickstarter campaign requires strategic and consistent effort.

"This is going to take up a lot of time. You should plan to devote time every day, or every other day, to make the campaign a success," filmmaker Theresa Loong wrote in her excellent "Kickstarter How-To" slideshow. (Thanks to Cathy Fischer at ITVS for pointing me to this resource.)

Then again, what effective fundraising campaign doesn't require a lot of effort? Compare the return on investment of your current efforts with the potential return of something like Kickstarter, which excels at raising money for targeted, specific projects.

Letson notes that Kickstarter campaigns have a built-in sense of urgency, which helps drive support, because people know that if you don't reach your fundraising goal, you don't get to keep any of the donations you've received. That's right -- with Kickstarter, it's all or nothing. That's not the case with IndieGoGo, which lets you keep your contributions no matter what -- but if you don't reach your goal, the site takes a larger cut. Another option is GoFundMe, which Letson says has helped him raise money for theater projects -- but again, he notes that the downside of the site is that it lacks Kickstarter's sense of urgency, leaving supporters feeling like they may have all the time in the world to make a donation ... meaning, you may be less likely to reach your goal in the desired time frame.

To be clear, you wouldn't use Kickstarter or these other tools to raise money for your station in a general way ("support WXYZ"); rather, you'd use them to raise money for a particular project or show. Letson observed that this can be a great way to engage the community in helping you create something of value for them. Think of MoveOn.org, which asks you to help fund the script of a specific commercial, for example, rather than making a general appeal to "help us do the progressive work we do." When the commercial is finally produced, you feel a sense of ownership -- "I helped make that."

Spot.us

Spot.us is a site that takes this idea and applies it specifically to journalism, allowing news orgs and reporters to raise money to help cover specific stories. American Public Media (APM) acquired Spot.us late last year, and it'll be interesting to see how Spot.us and APM's Public Insight Network (which supports crowdsourced journalism) can work in concert.

Previously, PRX and Louisville Public Media (LPM) partnered with Spot.us to create Story Exchange, a service that "gives listeners a chance to help create quality local journalism by directly supporting stories that matter to them." Now other stations are considering getting on board. As John Barth of PRX explains, Story Exchange is intended to help station newsrooms do ambitious reporting while giving community members "skin in the game" with local news; as Barth sees it, crowdfunding is just another form of community engagement.

Since the Story Exchange launch in April 2011, LPM has successfully funded four out of six news stories in the ballpark of $200-$400 a pop. While this is not a huge volume of reporting (or a large pile of cash), the fact is that Story Exchange helped LPM provide coverage it otherwise couldn't have produced. As LPM's Todd Mundt explained, the funding supported, for example, "a series on Coal Ash that exposed a problem that had existed in a neighborhood near a big power plant for years, and gave a voice to citizens who didn't have one." He said:

Story Exchange is a really interesting tool. I don't know exactly where it will go, but there is something here that's important and interesting. As far as we can tell, people -- some of whom are members, and some of whom aren't -- see value in providing direct support for a story on a topic that matters to them. From our end, it's a nice little bit of support, management supports it, we maintain total editorial control and our firewall is untouched. I see it developing as a way to produce some signature content with a measure of direct listener support.

Again, crowdfunding isn't a silver bullet. Just like other fundraising techniques, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't -- and marketing matters (a lot). But increasingly, crowdfunding is an approach that many independent media makers are finding effective, and more stations would do well to begin experimenting.

Do you have experience with crowdfunding? Share lessons learned.

Helpful Resources:

• Crowdfunding: Kickstarter How-to (With a Nod to IndieGoGo and Touscoprod) (slideshow)
• Are Crowd Funding Platforms the New Patrons of Independent Media? (from Beth Kanter's blog)
• MediaShift's coverage of crowdfunding

In addition, the websites for Kickstarter, IndieGoGo and GoFundMe offer tips and tutorials.

Amanda Hirsch is a writer, online media consultant and performer who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. The former editorial director of PBS.org, she blogs at amandahirsch.com and spends way too much time on Twitter.

This is an edited version of a post that originally appeared on the Integrated Media Association's Public Media Innovators Project, a weekly blog series about the people and projects that are helping make public media a relevant and viable media enterprise for the 21st century.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Poor conditions in apartments across the city lead to unhealthy tenants. A coalition of housing and health advocates have started a program to send health-care providers to tenants to treat housing-related illness.

At the middle of January the Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Michel Kazatchkine visited Ukraine. Ukrainian harm reduction activists used this opportunity to advocate the rights of opiate replacement therapy (ORT) patients.

The Association of the Substitution Treatment Advocates of Ukraine submitted the appeal to Mr Kazatchkine with an outline of current situation with the opiate replacement therapy (ORT) in Ukraine and a list of the most significant problems with its implementation. The activists of the Association urged the Executive Director of the Global Fund to discuss the strategy of ORT implementation with the government of Ukraine. The appeal was personally handed out to Mr Kazatchkine by the member of the Association Anton Basenko.

Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Image by ICASO. CC BY-NC-ND.

In its letter to Mr. Kazatchkin the Association expressed gratitude to the Global Fund for the financial support of the substitution therapy in Ukraine. Currently 6632 patients receive the treatment, 18.1% out of them have TB and almost 45% are HIV positive. Although in general the ORT programs in Ukraine are very successful there are a few issues which need to be solved with regards to its implementation. The Association, which main goal is improving of the quality and availably of ORT, listed the issues in the letter and on its web page.

The first issue the letter outlined was absence of government funding for ORT programs which, the Association believes, harms the image of the programs as Ukrainian doctors often tell the patients that the program will despair when the Global Fund stops the funding.

The second identified issue was luck of availability of HIV treatment and treatment of the opportunistic infections such as hepatitis, TB and other diseases for patients which require stay in a hospital and a continuation of ORT. The patients often have to make a choice whether to continue the ORT and hide from the doctors the other health problems or to treat other diseases and to stop ORT. 

The final serious issue is absence of an opportunity for the patients to receive Methadone through a pharmacy with the prescription of a doctor. This significantly slows down the process of re-socialization of the patients.

The activist Anton Basenko, who delivered the letter to the Executive Director of the Global Fund, concluded that today ORT programs in Ukraine became larger in quantity but not in quality.

The web-site focused on the issues of people living with the drug addiction Motilek  posted another letter of appeal to Mr Kazatchkine. In his very emotional letter the harm reduction activist and the ORT patient Igor discussed the tendencies in ORT provision in Ukraine and identified the possible threats. 

Igor claimed that the ORT program has significantly improved his life. He wrote:

Уже около 3-х лет я получаю заместительную поддерживающую терапию (ЗПТ) метадоном в одной из Киевских клиник. Мне 34 года. Из них 8 лет я кололся «ширкой» и 4 года провел в местах, как говорят у нас, не столь отдаленных.

Получаю ЗПТ, и вот уже пару лет, как почувствовал новый вкус жизни. Я осознал, что бездарно потратил в погоне за наркотиками много лучших лет своей жизни. Слава богу, я не заразился СПИДом. И это чудо. Многие ребята из моей прошлой «наркоманской» жизни сгорели от «дури» и от этой страшной болезни.

Я действительно называю эту часть жизни, когда я кололся, своим прошлым. Я остаюсь наркозависимым, потому что я получаю метадон каждый день, но я чувствую себя абсолютно нормальным человеком. Я не кайфую. Я просто живу как обычный человек. … Я работаю, женился, и мы с женой ждем ребенка. Сейчас это моя самая большая радость. Ей-то я и хочу с Вами поделиться. Этой радостью я обязан Альянсу, ГФ, врачам и медсестрам в больнице, куда я хожу каждый день. И я не хочу возвращаться в свое прошлое. Спасибо Вам, Мишель

It has been three years since I started receiving the opiate replacement therapy (ORT) with Methadone in one of the Kiev clinics. I am 34. For 8 years out of this I had used heroine and 4 years I spent in a prison.

I receive the ORT and it is already 2 years as I started to feel a taste of a new life. I realized how I wasted the best years of my life in hunting for drugs. Thanks good I did not get HIV. And this is a miracle. Many guys from my past life were ‘burned out’ with the drugs and this horrible disease.

I really call the part of my life when I injected the drugs ‘the past’. I am still a drug addict as every day I receive Methadone but I am totally normal person. I do not have any kef (euphoria from drugs). I live as an ordinary person. … I work, I got married and now I and my wife are waiting for a baby. This is my biggest joy and I want to share it with you.  I would not have this joy without the HIV/AIDS Alliance, Global Fund, doctors and nurses of the hospital which I visit every day.  I do not want to return to the past. Thank you for this, Michel.

Igor was very concerned with the future of ORT program is Ukraine and how it might affect his life. He was worried about the decision of the Global Fund to move the implementation of the program from the nonprofit organizations to the Ministry of Health Care of Ukraine. Igor believes the Ministry is very bureaucratic and very corrupted and this would negatively affect the implementation of ORT.

Igor was also alarmed with the decision of the Fund in three years to significantly reduce the funding for ORT programs in Ukraine. He urged Mr. Kazatchkin to make sure that Ukrainian government would continue the provision of the Methadone and Buprenorphine to all patients who need them.

The active steps of the harm reduction activists achieved positive results.  After the meeting of Michel Kazatchkine with the Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov the official web-portal of Ukrainian government reported that Ukraine will continue implementing the substitution therapy programs in a large scale as a mean of HIV prevention.

Written by Maryna Reshetnyak
· comments (0)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

2012 looks a lot like a convenient excuse for the Latin American diplomatic jet set to rack up their American Express rewards points while in Cartagena, Brasilia, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, Rio de Janeiro and elsewhere. Looking through a less cynical filter, 2012 could also be an important opportunity to build strong, international coalitions that eventually establish standards and roadmaps for the nascent open government movement. (The goal being, as Beth Noveck clearly articulates, that what we call “open government” today is what we will simply call “government” in the future.)

Let’s start with April, which should afford most Latin American diplomats enough rewards points to buy their own private jets by May. On April 14th and 15th the 34 heads of state of the Americas will be in Cartagena for the Sixth Summit of the Americas. Most of the mainstream media coverage will focus on whether or not Chavez and Dilma give each other a hug, but for those interested substance, the themes of the conference are: security, access to and use of technologies, natural disasters, poverty reduction, supportive cooperation, and regional integration. Most of the panels and workshops related to “access to and use of technologies” will focus on access to public services like education and healthcare. Colombia, the host of this year’s summit, has been making significant strides toward open government. Last year the ICT Ministry published three related reports: an evaluation of eGovernment for the private sector, a 12-step road map toward constructing an open government, and an Online Government assessment for 2010 – 2011.

Just as the Summit of the Americas ends, the finance wonks will head to Puerto Vallarta for the 2012 World Economic Forum on Latin America while the good governance wonks will fly to Brasília for the annual Open Government Partnership (OGP), this year hosted by Brazil. At the OGP, Mexico and Brazil will be joined by ten of their neighbors: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.

While there are some basic eligibility requirements (that seem to be quite flexible), the fundamental idea of the Open Government Partnership is that, while each member country is at a distinct point along the long journey toward open government ideal, what is most important is that they all continue progressing. (Hence the concern over South Africa’s recently passed secrecy bill.) I have written more about the Open Government Partnership here; hopefully the April meeting will stimulate more healthy competition among new member governments to become more open.

The OGP will convene representatives from government, veteran transparency NGOs, and civic startup entrepreneurs. Shortly thereafter, many from the latter category will head to Washington DC for Sunlight Foundation’s Transparency Camp, an annual “unconference” for open government. Traditionally Transparency Camp has been a mostly domestic affair with some international participation sponsored by my former and current employers, OSF and ON. This year it seems that Transparency Camp is making considerable strides toward becoming a truly international event.

May affords the #opengovjetset a slight respite to, you know, get some work done. But come June and it’s back to the airport. First there is Personal Democracy Forum 2012 in New York City. Then, sometime in June (strangely, the specific dates have still not been announced), Mexico will host the G20 in Los Cabos. As in previous years, the G20 will focus on the global governance of finance (good luck there), but it will also bring together academics, transparency NGOs, the private sector, and youth.

By the third week of June it’s time to fly to Rio de Janeiro for “Rio+20,” the UN Conference on Sustainable Development. The “7 Critical Issues at Rio+20” (and what isn’t critical when you’re pitching to the media?) are: jobs, energy, cities, food, water, oceans, and disasters. Groups like the Ethos Institute, the Global Reporting Initiative, and the Access Initiative have long been campaigning to conceptualize transparency as an overlapping theme across all seven “critical issues.”

Finally, in September it’s back to Brazil for this year’s Global Forum for Media Development, which will convene 500 participants to discuss the changing nature of media development in a post-broadcast world. (In 2009 I wrote a three-part essay on the “new era of media development:” parts one, two and three.)

Update: Georg Neumann pointed out that I missed yet one more international anti-corruption event in Brazil, Transparency International’s 15th annual International Anti-Corruption Conference, which takes place in Brasília from November 7-10.

All of the above conferences treat open government in the most general sense possible, but as the movement scales up, sub-communities are beginning to coalesce around particular topics:

Electoral Transparency: In February Fundar will convene an international seminar on electoral transparency in the lead up to Mexico’s July election. In April the Voter Information Program in the US will hold a hackathon. Surely many more similar events will take place across the globe in a year heavy on elections.

Budget Transparency: A global movement for budget transparency has coalesced around GIFT, the Global Initiative on Fiscal Transparency, Engagement, and Accountability which launched in Washington DC last July and will convene again this spring in Brazil. Meanwhile the Open Knowledge Foundation is building an international network of civil society organizations and civic hackers who want to make budgetary data more accessible via the Open Spending platform. (Follow their new blog, a great resource.) On a related note, this year’s Int’l Conference for Participatory Budgeting will take place in New York city on March 30 & 31.

Legislative Transparency: It’s also a big year for legislative transparency. A regional declaration was already signed at a major event in Chile last month. Another event at the end of April in Washington DC will bring together parliamentary monitoring organizations to build greater momentum for global norms of what kind of information we should expect from our congresses. And Regards Citoyens will host the Open Legislative Data Conference in Paris on July 6th & 7th.

Natural Resource Governance: Last November the Transparency and Accountability Initiative brought together technologists and civil society organizations to establish a community of practice around innovative solutions to natural resource governance. The Transparency Policy Project produced a handy “ecosystem report.” The release of Google Earth Engine at COP 15, a series of “Water Hackathons,” and the focus on technology at this year’s Rio+20 all point to growing momentum around the use of technology to more intelligently govern and benefit from our natural resources.

At the very least, 2012 will be a great year to accumulate frequent flyer miles. But who knows, maybe some hard work and consensus-building will even help further the increasingly international movement for open government.

If there wasn’t enough going on regarding redistricting this week the whole sordid affair got a kick in the pants thanks to U.S. District Court Judge Gary Sharpe who has ruled that unless that state takes legislative action all of New York’s future federal non-presidential primaries will be held on the fourth Tuesday of June. Groups in favor of independent redistricting have been concerned for months that Gov. Andrew Cuomo might not want to veto LATFOR’s district lines because it could send things into chaos right before a possible Spring primary. That Spring primary is now a reality barring any action from the legislature. If the legislature does not act New York will have three primary dates: the June primary for House and Senate races, the April Republican Presidential Primary and the September Senate and Assembly Primary.

Sharpe wrote:

“Notwithstanding any current state law or administrative procedure to the contrary, New York shall conduct its 2012 non-presidential federal primary election on a date no later than 35 days prior to the 45-day advance deadline set by the MOVE Act for transmitting ballots to the State’s military and overseas voters, i.e., at least 80 days before the November 6, 2012 federal general election. In 2012, that date shall be June 26, 2012.

In subsequent even-numbered years, New York’s non-presidential federal primary date shall be the fourth Tuesday of June, unless and until New York enacts legislation resetting the non-presidential federal primary election for a date that complies fully with all UOCAVA requirements, and is approved by this court.”

Notwithstanding any current state law or administrative procedure to the contrary, New York shall conduct its 2012 non-presidential federal primary election on a date no later than 35 days prior to the 45-day advance deadline set by the MOVE Act for transmitting ballots to the State’s military and overseas voters, i.e., at least 80 days before the November 6, 2012 federal general election. In 2012, that date shall be June 26, 2012. In subsequent even-numbered years, New York’s non-presidential federal primary date shall be the fourth Tuesday of June, unless and until New York enacts legislation resetting the non-presidential federal primary election for a date that complies fully with all UOCAVA requirements, and is approved by this court.

A longer version of this post first appeared on MIT's Center for Civic Media blog.

In our ongoing quest to trace the outline of the phrase "civic media," we began the Center for Civic Media's 2012 lunch series with Paul Wright, editor and co-founder of Prison Legal News, and executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center, the non-profit umbrella which publishes PLN.

PLN operates in a unique media environment, where the very act of distributing a magazine to their customers might first require winning a lawsuit. You see, their primary audience is made up of prisoners themselves. Prison Legal News is the longest-running publication put together with the help of people who are incarcerated, and since its first issue in 1990, it has become a critical resource for discussing issues facing these populations. It's an independent, monthly magazine that reviews and analyzes prisoner rights, court rulings, and news about prison issues. PLN focuses on state and federal U.S. prisons, as well as some international coverage. Paul himself has become a distinguished advocate on behalf of the U.S. population. Asked whether we could blog his talk, Paul responded, "Secrecy is the antithesis of publishing."

From Newsletter to National Publication

Prison Legal News started as a newsletter, in 1990, covering only Washington state's prisons. It was 10 pages and hand-typed for 75 subscribers. It launched into the publishing world with a $50 budget. The organization was completely volunteer-run until 1996. The first run of six issues ended up becoming a 22-year, 224-issue run (and still going). Some of their earliest subscribers are still with them -- a great sign for the publication's longevity, but a less great reflection of these subscribers' sentences.

PLN's perseverance has paid off: In 1990, there were 30 or 40 prisoners' rights news publications, but many have since ceased publishing. Prison Legal News has expanded its coverage as its subscriber base expanded. At one point, they realized they had more subscribers in California than in Washington, and that they had graduated to a national publication. Yet Paul considers himself one of the few people in print publishing these days who welcomes competition. He wishes there were other publications and institutions engaged in this work.

Prison Legal News is not light reading -- there's no horoscope, no advice column, just hard news and information. But that's what their customers want. An annual reader survey draws a 30-40% reader survey response, and the feedback is consistently asking for more useful information rather than lighter fare. There was a publication in the 1990s called "Prison Life," which covered prison life and the prison experience, and they were somehow surprised when they were unsuccessful, because prisoners would rather not read about this in their leisure time.

An expansion into book titles has focused on self-help and non-fiction reference books for prisoners, especially titles that aren't viable for traditional book publishers. Paul mentions books including "How to File a Lawsuit and Win," and books on hepatitis C (a dangerous health threat within the incarcerated population). There's great interest in books on health, including "Our Bodies, Ourselves," which Paul notes has been banned in some prison systems. They also provide "radical critiques of the criminal justice system", including edited volumes titled "The Celling of America," "Prison Nation" and
"Prison Profiteers." Paul notes that the books reach a different audience than the magazine, that there are people who prefer reading the long form of arguments.

Who Reads Prison News?

Prison Legal News is a niche publication. It's not trying to reach the whole incarcerated population of the U.S. It's targeting activists and lifers interested in improving prisons. Paul said they want to reach the activists, the 1% of people who make change. Men are 95% of the U.S. prison population, and make up a higher percentage of PLN's readership compared with women. Paul attributed this to the fact that women generally receive shorter sentences, and their subscribers tend to have long sentences ahead of them. Paul has found that it's the people who are in prison for a long period of time that make things happen. These are the lifers, the ones filing the lawsuits and organizing other prisoners. These are people who have accepted that prison is their life now, and who are working to do something to improve it.

There are around 7,000 subscribers to the print publication, but the reach is much broader. Reader surveys suggest that copies reach more than 10 prisoners each -- Paul estimates a readership of 80,000-90,000 readers. Additionally, the website gets around 100,000 visitors per month. The subscriber base includes judges, court officers, lawyers, journalists and academics, including Noam Chomsky, who Paul told us proudly was one of the first subscribers. All the big investment banks subscribe, Paul told us, because they follow news on the private prison industry. "I was happy when Lehman Brothers went under, but we lost a subscriber," he said. Lehman Brothers had been one of the biggest bankrollers of the private prison industry, so it was a happy day when they went down.

Publication Litigation

A big focus these days is making sure the target audience in prisons can actually receive the magazine. This requires extensive litigation. Prison Legal News has obtained consent decrees in nine states, ordering state prisons to deliver the magazine. PLN is currently litigating in New York and Florida to enable subscribers to receive their publication, both the magazine and the books they publish.

Almost every state's prison system has censored and banned the magazine at one point or another, Paul told us. The organization has won nine lawsuits, receiving consent decrees that order state prison systems to deliver the publications. The bans are generally pretextual. They're bans based on postal rates used to deliver magazines, or whether prisoners are allowed to pay for the magazine from their trust accounts. Sometimes there are arbitrary blocks on sending publications to prisoners in certain types of custody. In Washington, PLN discovered they needed to become an "approved vendor" and had a very difficult time figuring out "who's brother-in-law we had to work with" to gain "approved vendor" status, Paul said.

It's not just PLN getting banned. In one case, in South Carolina, the American Civil Liberties Union had to sue when a prison banned all books except the Bible. These pretextual excuses can get pretty absurd -- Paul is currently facing an argument that the staples used to bind the magazine might be used as dangerous weapons. While we think it's funny, these are the issues PLN is forced to litigate (marshal the resources to sue the government, and win). "Think of every magazine held together by staples, delivered by mail. TIME, Newsweek. We're the only publisher in America who routinely challenges this censorship," he said.

Many of these rules are designed to prevent prisoners from having material to read, far beyond PLN's magazine. It would help if other American publishers would join in the fight to ensure publications are able to reach prison populations. When an Indiana judge upheld a ban on gay publications "Out" and "The Advocate," Paul asked the publishers to file suit, because it would stand up better in court than a suit from a prisoner. But publishers aren't seeking the prison population. "They tell us that they're not part of our targeted advertising demographic," he said. For PLN, the core audience is prisoners, and there's no point in publishing if the core audience can't get it. In recognition of this, they realized that funding staff attorney positions was a priority.

I noted that some critics of PLN have argued that it's as much a litigation platform as it is a publication. Paul countered that "our initial goal was always just to publish the magazine. But we got to to the point where we're just consuming ever greater amounts of organizational resources just getting the magazine into prisons." Paul estimated that he can spend as much as 40% of his time focusing on being able to distribute the publication, rather than producing and editing it. "The editor should be worried about being (an) editor, not worrying about why one prison system or another is censoring content," he said. For there to be any litigation, the government has to illegally censor the magazine, then PLN has to sue, and then they have to win. "If you don't like the consequences, don't break the law," Paul said.

Isolation from Society

Restrictions on what can be sent in and out of prison harm PLN in another way: It makes it very hard to hear from the incarcerated. In some prisons, prisoners can no longer send or receive information beyond what fits on a postcard. Other layers of draconian restriction include rules that postcard communication has to be in ink, can't use a label, etc. These mechanisms tend to be arbitrary and are designed, Paul argued, to prevent prisoners from having communication to and from the outside world. His organization has challenged a couple of these successfully, with a couple more pending. Paul told us that they are trying to nip this trend in the bud before it gets entrenched.

"Part of the goal is to get prisoners information. But conversely, we want to hear from them," he said. The bulk of the magazine's content is provided by contributing writers, who are mostly prisoners, some of whom have been working with PLN for over a decade. In the hopes of ensuring widespread distribution of the information, PLN doesn't demand exclusive publishing rights -- and people are free to copy and disseminate the information.

This is an area of close overlap with one of the Center for Civic Media's projects, "Between the Bars." BTB is a blogging platform for prisoners that gets around the lack of Internet access by scanning and publishing letters to a blog, and then mailing comments back to the authors on postcards. In addition to helping the incarcerated publish to the web, it helps the rest of the U.S. population by ensuring that we are able to hear from these voices, who comprise 1% of our entire populace.

Prison News Online

The Internet has greatly improved the visibility of Prison Legal News. Paul told us he conducts 3-4 interviews a week about the publication and the issues it raises. He's fluent in Spanish and noted that there's a great deal of interest in these issues from programs in Colombia and Venezuela. One of his associate gives interviews in Russian media, which seems to have an endless appetite for stories about the U.S. prison system. Some have observed that the U.S. prison system must be pretty bad when the Russians enjoy making fun of it.

The online presence of the magazine has allowed PLN to build a publication library online, with more than 6,000 documents available in its Brief Bank. "We've got the biggest, and I would say, the best, repository of prison documents online," Paul said. As a result, PLN generally shows up in Google's first page for prison-related queries, except sometimes when the "Prison Break" program is on TV.

At the same time, few prisoners have access to the web from their cell. Six prison systems allowed web access in 1990, but by 2000, that number was zero. Paul noted that not one of the prisoners who took part in a program to learn to use computers receded.

Prisons can be a bit of a timeless place, said Paul, where the equipment you see is 50-60 years old. PLN's print publishing business still thrives here (advertising levels for the print magazine are actually going up), and web publishing is almost nonexistent. PLN hasn't figured out how to make money online, like other publishers. Its content performs poorly with online advertising. On the site, the news content is free, legal content is paid, and these fees cover basic staff time put into the site. Advertising and subscription income and book distribution bring in about the same amount. Payroll is the biggest expense. They get some foundation funding and donations, and when all of this revenue is cobbled together, it's enough to move forward. Staying Human

The acts of reading and writing are core to helping prisoners maintain their humanity, especially when everything else in these punitive systems is working to degrade that humanity. A publication like PLN lets prisoners connect with others, when the rest of the system is designed to isolate and alienate.

Paul is wary of the dehumanization that takes place before genocides and in prisons. We lose sight of the people in prison. We need to keep in mind that they're someone's father, someone's son, regardless of what they've done. When someone's been murdered in a prison, it's almost always that person's mother who calls PLN.

Paul closed his presentation by noting that he's now 264 issues into this project, and that since 1990, "everything to do with the criminal justice system, by objective or subjective standard, has gotten worse."

This post was written with Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT. For more information about PLN, see their Frequently Asked Questions and get in touch.

By Steve Fox: A couple of weeks ago I was at a hockey game with my son. During the game, as I absentmindedly checked emails on my phone, I saw a Twitter note from an alumni of the UMass program saying "Look at what this person is saying about you!" Without thinking, I clicked on the link....and instantly kicked myself for doing so, as the link spawned a Twitter spam, sending the virus to hundreds of my Twitter followers. It was the first time for me, but definitely reminded me about the power of social media. I heard from friends, colleagues and students about the spam, and ended up apologizing more than once for not following my own advice to students: Think Before You Click! The social media dustup surrounding the early and inaccurate reports of Joe Paterno's death once again brought to the forefront how the rapid nature of social media can lead to bad journalism. It was deja vu all over again: A year ago NPR mistakenly reported that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had died after being shot in the head. Why do journalists keep botching the facts on Twitter? I posed a question along these lines on the Social Journalism Educators group on Facebook and received some of the requisite "it's not Twitter's fault;" and Twitter is "only" an amplification device. As much as I love most of what Matthew Ingram writes, his post on the Paterno screw-up being another example of "news as a process" worries me. Defenders of the social media realm rarely seem to want to get at why these massive ethical lapses continue to occur on Twitter. And I just won't buy the idea that "this is the way it is" or "letting everyone know you made a mistake is great for transparent journalism." Don't get me wrong, I love the many benefits of social media and I teach about its journalistic value. But I also feel that we all need to begin practicing "safe social media" practices to protect us all. After the Giffords debacle, Alicia Shepard, the former ombudsman for NPR, wrote a column about the need for journalists to re-learn the lesson of checking sources. And she counters the shrugs inherent in many comments from social media defenders by reminding us all why it's important to get it right, even if it's not first: "...To report a death, incorrectly, is a serious, serious error and may have caused untold grief and pain for many who know Giffords." Journalism is about process but the process is to get the correct information out, not to throw spaghetti against the wall, see what sticks and sort it all out later. So, what to do?

The numbers are staggering. Apple Inc. is now the most valuable company in the U.S. The company made more than $13 billion in profit last quarter, more than Google made in revenues. According to TUAW, the iPhone by itself, in three months, brought in more revenue than McDonald's made in all of 2010. So how does all that make you feel? Are you excited for Apple's success? Envious? Or are you horrified at the working conditions in Chinese factories that make iPhones and iPads? Or do you simply hate Apple products? Share your thoughts pro and con Apple in the comments below, and vote in our poll.

What do you think about the success of Apple?

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

“There is no logical basis for Mayor Bloomberg’s defense of Deputy Commissioner Browne’s job performance. Based on the facts, he cannot have been both honest and competent in his handling of “The Third Jihad” and its aftermath. He lied to the public on multiple occasions and his actions deepened the divide between the NYPD and the New York City community, which harms our ability to best police and protect our city. If this was the first error in judgment Deputy Commissioner Browne had made, it would be excusable. Sadly, it is not, and the public record shows this without dispute. In just the last six months, he has been caught in lies ranging from phantom punches and elbows to fake excuses about pepper spraying at Occupy Wall Street. There is even evidence that suggests that Deputy Commissioner Browne may have lied under oath about his involvement in a 2004 Critical Mass ride. You can have your doubts about whether any one of these incidents has been truly justified, but you cannot look at the entirety of his record and claim that the man in charge of public information hasn’t been engaged in a campaign of overt misinformation or complete incompetency. This behavior would not be accepted by any other city agency, and it certainly should not be accepted by the NYPD or the city’s taxpayers that afford him his six-figure salary. Police accountability seems to be treated as a dirty term, if not a non-starter, for Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly, but the calls from New Yorkers get more intense every day. If they will not recognize the problems festering within the NYPD, then we need an independent oversight committee and/or the intervention of the Justice Department to do it for them. The City Council must also use whatever resources it has at its disposal to get real answers. As chair of the Oversight and Investigations Committee, I am eager to be a part of that effort which is greatly needed and long overdue.”

Councilman Jumaane Williams is blasting Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his defense of New York Police Department Commissioner Paul Browne’s job performance following revelations about the Third Jihad anti-Muslim propaganda video screened by the NYPD. Bloomberg described Browne as,  ”honest and as competent as anybody in the business of representing the city and giving out information”.

Williams strongly disagrees with that assessment. He has called for Browne’s resignation and issued this statement:

“There is no logical basis for Mayor Bloomberg’s defense of Deputy Commissioner Browne’s job performance. Based on the facts, he cannot have been both honest and competent in his handling of “The Third Jihad” and its aftermath. He lied to the public on multiple occasions and his actions deepened the divide between the NYPD and the New York City community, which harms our ability to best police and protect our city.

If this was the first error in judgment Deputy Commissioner Browne had made, it would be excusable. Sadly, it is not, and the public record shows this without dispute. In just the last six months, he has been caught in lies ranging from phantom punches and elbows to fake excuses about pepper spraying at Occupy Wall Street. There is even evidence that suggests that Deputy Commissioner Browne may have lied under oath about his involvement in a 2004 Critical Mass ride. You can have your doubts about whether any one of these incidents has been truly justified, but you cannot look at the entirety of his record and claim that the man in charge of public information hasn’t been engaged in a campaign of overt misinformation or complete incompetency. This behavior would not be accepted by any other city agency, and it certainly should not be accepted by the NYPD or the city’s taxpayers that afford him his six-figure salary.

Police accountability seems to be treated as a dirty term, if not a non-starter, for Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly, but the calls from New Yorkers get more intense every day. If they will not recognize the problems festering within the NYPD, then we need an independent oversight committee and/or the intervention of the Justice Department to do it for them. The City Council must also use whatever resources it has at its disposal to get real answers. As chair of the Oversight and Investigations Committee, I am eager to be a part of that effort which is greatly needed and long overdue.”

On January 18, 2012, the Citizen Media Law Project (under its new name, the Digital Media Law Project -- new website coming soon) filed an amicus brief in the Massachusetts Appeals Court in Jenzabar, Inc. v. Long Bow Group, Inc., No. 2011-P-1533. 

The CMLP  submitted its friend of the court brief to urge the Appeals Court to uphold several fundamental legal principles, including protecting critical speech online and preventing the misuse of trademark law in a distinctly non-trademark context to impede the free flow of information.

More information about the case and the amicus brief is available on the Berkman Center website.

Links:

Amicus Brief

Press Release

Case Entry in CMLP Database

he best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung.

1. Twitter to block tweets on case-by-case basis (CNET)



2. Twitter faces censorship backlash  (paidContent)



3. Google spent almost $2 billion on acquisitions in 2011 (TechCrunch)



4. Facebook hires Bloomberg journalist to be managing editor (BusinessInsider)



5. Lee Enterprises leader named new AP board chairwoman  (AP)



6. Will a streaming audiobooks service work?  (paidContent)



7. Another meme spinoff: Ad Tech Ryan Gosling (Digiday)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

LATFOR co chair Assemblyman Jack McEneny told Liz Benjamin of State of Politics last night that LATFOR delayed releasing its lines yesterday by the request of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

You can get the full interview and event timeline over at State of Politics.

As Liz points out–Cuomo spoke to the press earlier in the day and insisted he hand’t seen the lines and was not ready to comment. After the lines were released Cuomo’s spokesperson issued a statement saying that “At first glance,” the Governor would likely veto the lines.

Cuomo has seemingly done his best to avoid actually saying he will veto the lines this year.

Cuomo, when pressed, did state numerous times last year that he would veto unfair lines but he has yet to make a firm public statement this year–redistricting was absolutely absent from his delivered State of the State remarks. It looks like the back-room wrangling for more significant redistricting reform and a constitutional amendment will continue. Meanwhile the public will get a chance to weigh in on LATFOR’s lines at a series of public hearings. The first hearing will take place in Albany on Monday at 10:30 a.m., on Tuesday LATFOR will be in the Bronx and Wednesday in Brooklyn. Check out the full schedule here.

Welcome to the 35th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Dorian Benkoil, who is filling in for Rafat Ali. Once again, Apple dominates the headlines, this time for quarterly earnings that blew away Wall Street -- and everyone else. The company made $13.1 billion in profits in the quarter, more than Google made in revenues that same quarter. Apple was driven by the popular iPhone 4S as well as the iPad, and seemed it could do no wrong. But at the same time, the tech juggernaut found itself the subject of a series in the New York Times about horrendous working conditions at the factories that make iProducts.

Our special guest this week was Dan Zarrella, the "social media scientist," who gave us tips on how to get more clicks per tweet we send out. Zarrella is known for doing more than just spouting off-the-cuff advice for social media marketing, but actually putting numbers behind his tips. And finally, we looked at the East Coast vs. West Coast battle playing out in media + tech, as New York adds more of these jobs as the financial business shrinks there. Plus, Cornell got a massive donation to help build a new science and tech school on Roosevelt Island that will include a venture fund to incubate more tech companies in the Big Apple.

Check it out!

mediatwits35.mp3

Subscribe to the podcast here

Subscribe to Mediatwits via iTunes

Follow @TheMediatwits on Twitter here

Intro and outro music by 3 Feet Up; mid-podcast music by Autumn Eyes via Mevio's Music Alley.

Here are some highlighted topics from the show:

Intro

1:10: Special co-host Dorian Benkoil filling in for Rafat Ali

2:10: Rundown of topics on the podcast

Apple's boffo earnings

3:30: Amazing, incredible, mind-blowing earnings from Apple

5:20: What will Apple do with $97 billion in cash?

7:20: Credit goes to Steve Jobs for keeping Apple focused

9:40: iPod sales going down, Mac not as huge

11:10: Will factory conditions get better in China for Apple products?

Get more clicks per tweet

12:45: Special guest Dan Zarrella

13:40: Zarrella puts science behind "unicorns and rainbows" advice on social media

18:40: Zarrella: You get more clicks with tweets at 120 to 130 characters

20:20: More attention for tweets on weekends and nights when there's less noise

22:30: Zarrella plans to do more research on e-books in the future

NYC vs. Silicon Valley

23:10: New York pushing for more tech startups, and media + tech workers

26:20: Mayor Michael Bloomberg pushing for more tech education, startups with new campus at Roosevelt Island

29:05: More office space now in NYC going to media and tech jobs and not finance

More Reading

Apple Reports First Quarter Results at Apple.com

In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad at NY Times

Lesser-known facts from Apple's earnings statement at TUAW

Things Apple Is Worth More, a Tumblr blog


Apple's Not So Secret War at Mac Observer

How to Get More Clicks on Twitter at DanZarrella.com

How To Use Contra-Competitive Timing for More ReTweets, Likes, Comments and Clicks at DanZarrella.com

Cornell Alumnus Is Behind $350 Million Gift to Build Science School in City at NY Times

Report: Tech, media companies will rule New York in 2012 at Cresa Blog

Weekly Poll

Don't forget to vote in our weekly poll, this time about the success of Apple:

What do you think about the success of Apple?

Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. and Circle him on Google+

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

So much can be said in 160 characters. As we've started to look at tailoring FrontlineSMS software for journalists, we've realized just how much potential there is to use text messaging as a news source.

As FrontlineSMS's community support coordinator, I interact every day with people and organizations that are using SMS in innovative ways. Increasingly, I've come across uses of FrontlineSMS as a journalistic tool, and this is particularly exciting for us as we embark on building new mobile tools to help increase media participation in hard-to-reach communities.

FrontlineSMS is a free and open-source tool, so its most interesting uses have always come from motivated, engaged users who discover and experiment with ways to use SMS to improve what they do. When we talk about using SMS for journalism, some people immediately jump into thinking about how they could cram an entire newspaper into 160 characters. Obviously, that would be a bit tight. What our users have found, however, is that there are lots of ways to use shorter communication to enable effective journalism.

In fact, FrontlineSMS users regularly demonstrate how a wealth of information can fit into 160 characters. It's through the creative ingenuity of our users that the impact of using SMS as a news sharing tool really comes to life. The following are some examples of our users that answer the question: What difference can SMS make for the media?

texting into radio shows

Equal Access is an innovative organization focused on using media and technology to help support development. In Chad and Niger, Equal Access runs interactive community radio shows that feature topics such as politics and religion and discuss how to overcome community tensions. With listeners keen to discuss these topics, Equal Access needs an accessible way to manage regular audience interaction. FrontlineSMS enables users to manage large numbers of incoming and outgoing SMS, providing the ability to view multiple messages on-screen, set up auto-replies, and divide contacts into groups depending on their interests. Using these functions, Equal Access sets up a way for audiences to text into its radio shows, and is able to effectively manage incoming audience text messages while on-air.

The Equal Access team talked about the value of this in a guest post on our blog, saying, "We use FrontlineSMS to create interaction ... and this shows listeners that they are being heard. In closed communities, or those struggling with violence or intolerance, the act of engaging in an interactive dialogue ... can help people feel engaged and included."

Equal Access' use of SMS demonstrates that 160 characters can be enough to enable audience engagement. And it's not just radio audiences that engage in this way (although the combination of radio and SMS is prominent, as seen through our work on FrontlineSMS:Radio).

Raising AIDS awareness

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, SMS has been used to engage opinions from audiences of a television drama broadcast called "Rien que la Vérité" (meaning "Nothing but the Truth"). One of the aims of this broadcast, which isn't just your standard entertaining drama, is to raise awareness and challenge stereotypes on HIV/AIDS. Viewers of "Rien que la Vérité" were given the option to interact with the show's producers via text message. In this case, hearing from the audience via SMS helped demonstrate whether opinions on HIV/AIDs are being affected by the show's content.

For both Equal Access and "Rien que la Vérité," using FrontlineSMS software enables more efficient audience interaction, making text messages easier to manage, respond to, and analyze.

Ongoing audience interaction is clearly important, and in today's changing media landscape the audience is now a major news provider, too. Even in areas where there's no Internet connection -- where the power of social media has yet to reach -- citizen journalists are still playing a key role in the production of media content.

breaking news in 160 characters

Harry Surjadi, a Knight International Journalism fellow, is enabling citizen journalists from remote offline communities in Indonesia to break news in 160 characters. Surjadi has used FrontlineSMS to set up a system in which incoming reports from citizen journalists can be forwarded via SMS to groups of subscribers who would not necessarily have access to news from other sources; the result is a truly innovative and powerful SMS news service which is proving successful already.

The system is run with Ruai Citizen Journalism Training Center, part of a local television station in Indonesia called RuaiTV, and was set up with support from Internews. Surjadi's motivation in setting this system up was to enable remote indigenous communities to actively engage in producing media content, and due to the accessibility of SMS, he is achieving his news-sharing goals.

It's exciting to see how FrontlineSMS is allowing people to engage at a wider community level. Our users have demonstrated the wealth of potential uses of SMS in the media. Through our community, I've seen that 160 characters can speak volumes -- facilitating dialogues, providing a voice to isolated communities, and, ultimately, providing access to information that can help improve lives.

Image courtesy of Ken Banks of kiwanja.net.

Albany Assemblyman Jack McEneny, who also happens to co-chair LATFOR, issued a statement defending the maps issued today. Maps that the New York Public Interest Research Group called the most gerrymandered in recent history. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he would veto these lines if they stay as they are.

Here is McEneny’s statement:

“The Assembly plan released today by the Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR) is the culmination of a months-long process to reshape New York’s electoral map based on shifts in population that have occurred over the last decade. Our proposal is responsive to the many individuals across the state who offered oral or written testimony to the Task Force.

In particular, good government groups have asked that we make districts as nearly equal in population as practicable.  Toward that end we have drawn districts that have less disparity than is required by law and closer to equality than the current lines.  The proposed Assembly districts – with one exception, which was drawn to avoid crossing a county line – have a population deviation of less than four percent.   This is a plan which moves us more toward a key reform.

As part of the process, we took into consideration and incorporated many elements of proposals submitted in map form by numerous voting rights and good government groups, private citizens and public officials.  We are grateful to them all for helping us with this constitutionally mandated task and look forward to further interaction and suggestions as we make our way across the state a second time to receive more input.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s spokesperson Josh Vlasto says that lines released by LATFOR today are unacceptable.

“At first glance, these lines are simply unacceptable and would be vetoed by the Governor. We need a better process and product.”

Earlier today Cuomo said he would let the process “play out” but apparently the Governor did not like something he saw in these lines.

Dick Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union, says he still wants Gov. Andrew Cuomo to veto LATFOR’s district lines, “If fairer lines are not created for 2012  and there is no structural reform.” Gotham Gazette is published by Citizens Union Foundation the sister organization to Citizens Union. Senate Democrats were taken aback by Dadey’s recent interview with Jimmy Vielkind of the Times Union where it seemed Dadey was giving Cuomo room not to veto the lines. Dadey told Vielkind: ““A veto is no guarantee that there will be fairer lines for 2012, and we wouldn’t get any structural reform,” he said. “We’ve always wanted the governor to use his veto threat to achieve reform, not to have these lines go into court. What does that get us at the end of the day? It doesn’t get us what we want — structural reform.”

Dadey told me: “I stand by what I said to Jimmy, but we expect if fairer lines are not created for 2012 and there is no structural reform the Governor should keep his veto promise. Citizens Union has always been about structural reform.”

The structural reform would likely be a constitutional amendment for the 2022 redistricting process. I asked Dadey if he would settle for one over the other–just improved 2012 lines or just structural reform and he had this to say:

“I cant imagine a scenario where we don’t get changes in 2012 and structural changes. They go hand in hand.”

Dadey made it clear that he is not happy with LATFOR’s proposed lines.

“What is clear is these maps are gerrymandered. That is what we get  when legislators are left to draw their own districts. It  makes the case of why we need permanent change and why the Governor should use his veto promise to get fair lines.”

Dadey said the Senate’s lines were particularly offensive.

“It is just abhorrent that somehow four Democratic incumbents are being forced into districts in interest of creating opportunity minority districts when nothing has changed on Long Island to create a minority opportunity district.”

The 63rd Senate seat created by Senate Republicans looks uncannily to me like the evil Reaper spaceship from the popular Mass Effect video game series. It sweeps down from Montgomery County slices away half of Sen. Neil Breslin’s Albany County district, swallows Green County and its tentacles stab into the top of Ulster.

But I suppose that is a rather insignificant observation when you look at what New York Public Interest Group’s Bill Mahoney has to say about the proposed maps as a whole.He says, the Senate’s maps are, “clearly the most gerrymandered lines in recent New York History.” He provided this statement and statistical breakdown to back up his claim. Check it out.

Mahoney had this to say:

“There are several methods of measuring how representative of voters districts are.  The typical deviation from the ideal population is one of the few completely objective criteria that can be used.  While judging this set of proposed maps by this yardstick, the Senate’s maps are clearly the most gerrymandered lines in recent New York history.  The Assembly’s are slightly better than 2002’s final maps, but fall far short of providing mathematically equal representation.”

Senate: Districts 3% or further from ideal population:

1984: 0

1992: 0

2002: 19

2012: 50

Senate: Districts within 1% of ideal population (as proposed in Gov. Cuomo’s bill)

1984: 44 out of 61

1992: 47 out of 61

2002: 11 out of 62

2012: 3 out of 63

Assembly: Districts 3% or further from ideal population:

1984: 15

1992: 49

2002: 70

2012: 67

Assembly: Districts within 1% of ideal population:

1984: 92

1992: 46

2002: 18

2012: 26

We’re looking to hire a second UI designer to join our development team at EveryBlock.

We value design highly and try to ensure everything we create is beautiful and usable. This is your chance to have a hand in all aspects of our company, from our Web site to our e-mail alerts to our mobile applications to physical marketing materials. (Ever design a bookmark?)

Beyond straight design work, you’ll have a hand in mapping out product strategy. Your contributions will be varied, your work will be interesting, and you’ll have an immediate, direct impact on the awesomeness of our service.

We like to hire polymaths. You should be as comfortable designing mockups in Photoshop as you are getting dirty in HTML and CSS. You should care deeply about design, but you should also know how to write (simple) code, as in JavaScript or Python. You should sweat details. You should be inquisitive and a quick learner. You should be ready to come to the table with ideas, and you should be willing to be wrong.

Your job responsibilities will span this list (not necessarily in order):

• Web app design
• HTML
• LESS CSS framework
• Django templates
• Chalkboard sketches
• Post-it notes
• Wireframing
• Mobile app design
• Photoshop
• Copywriting
• User testing
• jQuery

You will work very closely with the other designer and four developers. We have a low-stress environment and a culture of getting things done with as little corporate BS as possible. We have a ping pong table. We play a lot of Resistance.

You should have 4+ years experience in web design, with experience building apps from soup to launch.

Though we’re technically no longer an independent startup — we were acquired by msnbc.com in 2009 — we’re culturally very much still a startup, given that our product is still in early stages and we’re still figuring things out. It’s a very nice combination of startup culture with the financial security of working for a big company. (We have great benefits — salary, health care, 401(k), etc.) And msnbc.com is taking the long-view on us, investing in us over time and giving us years to develop a large audience and become profitable. It’s a great company to work for and now is a fantastic time to be joining our team.

You’ll need to live in the Chicago area for this position. Our office is in a comfortable loft space on the north side of Chicago, near a bunch of other startups. Several of us walk or bike to work. We’re also equidistant from the Montrose and Irving Park el stations on the Brown Line, along with several bus lines.

Apply through the official msnbc.com Jobvite site here. Thanks.

LATFOR has posted their proposed district lines for 2012. Both the Assembly and Senate maps are available here.

Senate Republicans have issued a statement defending their lines and the 63rd Senate District their maps create. Of the 63rd seat the statement says:

” The plan adds a 63rd Senate seat, as required by the formulas under Article III of the State Constitution.  That seat is located in the Capital Region and Upper Hudson Valley, which experienced the largest percentage increase of population growth in the state since the 2000 U.S. census.” This seat is the one that Assemblyman George Amedore is expected to run for.

The statement calls the process by which the lines were created, ” open and transparent.”

Here is the full statement from Senate Republicans:

The bipartisan Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment –co-chaired by Senator Michael F. Nozzolio and Assemblyman John J. McEneny  –  today released new Senate district lines, based on population shifts which occurred over the last ten years.

The Senate plan is fair, legal and protects minority voting interests.  It complies with the State Constitution, the U.S. Constitution, state and federal laws, and the Federal Voting Rights Act.

The new draft district lines are the result of an open and transparent process.  The boundaries were drafted after the Task Force coordinated 14 public hearings in every corner of the state, taking 55 hours of testimony from more than 375 witnesses.

The population of each Senate district fully complies with the requirements of the state constitution, including “town on border,” “block on border” and is well within the standard required by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The plan provides continuity by largely preserving the cores of existing districts.  In fact, the vast majority of new districts contain three-fourths or more of their old districts.

Consistent with the Voting Rights Act, the Senate plan protects minority representation by maintaining or strengthening every African American district in New York City – - despite the loss of nearly 100,000 African Americans since the last census.

The plan maintains Hispanic populations in currently represented Hispanic districts, and even increases the Hispanic population in a number of districts.

The Task Force maintains “communities of interest” together whenever possible, including consolidation of the Orthodox Jewish community into one Brooklyn Senate district rather than five Senate districts.  The Senate plan also includes a first-ever majority Asian-American Senate district anchored in Flushing, Queens.  The Task Force will also seek additional public input on uniting “communities of interest” in the coming weeks.

The plan adds a 63rd Senate seat, as required by the formulas under Article III of the State Constitution.  That seat is located in the Capital Region and Upper Hudson Valley, which experienced the largest percentage increase of population growth in the state since the 2000 U.S. census.

Nine additional public hearings will also take place, beginning on Monday, January 30 at 10:30 a.m. in Albany, in Hearing Room A on the second floor of the Legislative Office Building.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that bloggers should not be too concerned about a decision by a federal judge in Oregon that blogger Crystal Cox is not protected by Oregon's reporters' shield law in a defamation suit.

But a new decision in Illinois reaching the same conclusion about another blogger is more problematic.

The Oregon ruling – which led to a $2.5 million verdict against Cox, that she is seeking to have vacated – concluded that a blogger is not “media.” Obsidian Finance Group, LLC v. Cox, No. CV-11-57-H, 2011 WL 2745849, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137548 (D. Or. Nov. 30, 2011).

This what got most of the attention in coverage of the case. But it was not the primary basis for the court's holding that she was not protected by the shield law. Instead, the judge denied Cox the protection of the shield law because she tried to use the existence of the source as evidence in her defense, while at the same time invoking the shield law to refuse to identify that source. This is known as using the reporter’s privilege as both a "sword and shield" and has been rejected by courts in many states. In addition, Oregon's shield law statute specifically prohibits it. See Ore. Rev. Stat. § 44.530(3).

The new Illinois decision more directly involved application of the state's reporters' shield law to an online news source: in this case, TechnoBuffalo.com, which consists of frequent blog posts on (excuse the pun) bits of technology news.

The question was whether the site falls under Illinois' reporter's shield law, 75 Ill. Comp. Stat. §§ 5/8-901 - 8-909, which provides that "No court may compel any person to disclose the source of any information obtained by a reporter except as provided in [the other provisions of the shield law]." (emphasis added)

The terms "reporter" and "source" are defined in the statute, as is the phrase "news medium": 

(a) "Reporter" means any person regularly engaged in the business of collecting, writing or editing news for publication through a news medium on a full‑time or part‑time basis . . . .

(b) "News medium" means any newspaper or other periodical issued at regular intervals whether in print or electronic format and having a general circulation; a news service whether in print or electronic format; a radio station; a television station; a television network; a community antenna television service; and any person or corporation engaged in the making of news reels or other motion picture news for public showing.

(c) "Source" means the person or means from or through which the news or information was obtained.

75 Ill. Comp. Stat. §§ 5/8-902.

According to news reports about the decision (here and here; I haven't been able to find the decision itself; UPDATE: The ruling and other documents and information about the case are here), Judge Michael R. Panter of the Cook County Circuit Court held that "TechnoBuffalo’s reliance on the Illinois reporter’s privilege is misplaced," because the site did not qualify as a "news medium" under the statute. "TechnoBuffalo’s anonymous 'tipster' is hardly an example of a 'source' of investigative journalism that requires protection of the Act."

Judge Panter's decision is contrary to a decision of a California court holding that a similar blog was covered by that state's reporters' shield provision. In O'Grady v. Superior Court, 139 Cal.App.4th 1423, 44 Cal.Rptr.3d 72 (Cal. App., 6th Dist. 2006), the California Court of Appeals held that the "O'Grady's PowerPage" blog was included in the shield provision language extending coverage to "[a] publisher, editor, reporter, or other person connected with or employed upon a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication ... ." See Cal. Const., Art. I, § 2(b) (shield provision in state constitution); see also  Cal. Evid. Code § 1070 (statutory provision).

Given the numerous ambiguities presented by "periodical publication" in this context, its applicability must ultimately depend on the purpose of the statute. It seems likely that the Legislature intended the phrase "periodical publication" to include all ongoing, recurring news publications while excluding non-recurring publications such as books, pamphlets, flyers, and monographs. The Legislature was aware that the inclusion of this language could extend the statute's  protections to something as occasional as a legislator's newsletter. If the Legislature was prepared to sweep that broadly, it must have intended that the statute protect publications like petitioners', which differ from traditional periodicals only in their tendency, which flows directly from the advanced technology they employ, to continuously update their content.

O'Grady v. Superior Court, 44 Cal.Rptr.3d at 104-05 (citations omitted).

The New Hampshire Supreme Court faced a similar question in Mortgage Specialists, Inc. v. Implode-Explode Heavy Indus., Inc., 160 N.H. 227, 999 A.2d 184 (N.H. 2010), except that New Hampshire's journalist's privilege exists as a matter of common law, not statute. See Opinion of the Justices, 117 N.H. 386, 373 A.2d 644 (1977) (finding journalists' privilege under state constitution's free speech provision). Yet the New Hampshire high court also found that a blog news site was covered by the privilege.

The fact that Implode operates a website makes it no less a member of the press. In light of the trial court’s implicit findings, we conclude that Implode’s website serves an informative function and contributes to the flow of information to the public. Thus, Implode is a reporter for purposes of the newsgathering privilege.

Mortgage Specialists, Inc. v. Implode-Explode Heavy Indus., Inc., 160 N.H. 227, 234, 999 A.2d 184, 189 (N.H. 2010).

The federal judge in Oregon reached the opposite conclusion in the Cox case. Without much discussion, he simply stated that the blog in that case was not covered by Oregon's shield statute, which provides that “[n]o person connected with, employed by or engaged in any medium of communication to the public shall be required [to reveal confidential sources],” Ore. Rev. Stat. 44.520(1), and then provides that

"Medium of communication” has its ordinary meaning and includes, but is not limited to, any newspaper, magazine or other periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system.

Id.

Judge Marco A. Hernandez focused on the list, and found that Cox and her blog did not fit under any of these categories. In doing so, he ignored the statute's language that “medium of communication” includes not only the specific media listed.

On a related issue, Judge Hernandez observed that "Defendant cites no cases indicating that a self-proclaimed 'investigative blogger' is considered 'media' for the purposes of applying a negligence standard in a defamation claim." Of course there are no such opinions, since blogs and social media are a new emerging medium.

Such a legalistic application of a journalists' shield law is reminiscent of  the 11th Circuit's opinion in Price v. Time, Inc., 416 F.3d 1327 (11th Cir. 2005), modified, 425 F.3d 1292 (11th Cir. 2005), which held that Sports Illustrated was not covered by Alabama's shield law, Ala.Code § 12-21-142, because "magazines" were not specifically mentioned in the list of media protected by the statute.

The rulings in Price and Obsidian Finance Group are worrisome and overly legalistic, and do not recognize that the purpose of reporters' privilege provisions is to facilitate the free exchange of information; and that blogs are certainly a new means of doing this, and should be covered by these shield provisions, as the courts found in O'Grady and Mortgage Specialists.

The Illinois court could – and should – have used the rationale in O'Grady and Mortgage Specialists to include the TechnoBuffalo blog in Illinois' reporters' shield law. Now, it will probably be left for an appellate court to do this, which will provide jurists like Judge Hernandez in Oregon an appellate ruling to cite for the logical conclusion that shield law protect bloggers as they protect other journalists.

Eric P. Robinson is the deputy director of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Courts and Media at the University of Nevada, Reno. He previously worked at the Media Law Resource Center and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. In addition to his posts here, Eric also blogs at www.bloglawonline.com.  

(Image of Worried Eggs II courtesy of Flickr user Domiriel under CC BY NC 2.0 license.)

All week LATFOR members have told the press that they should expect the new district lines any day now. In fact Assemblyman Jack McEneny has given a time and date a few times only to have the lines not be made public. The most recent expectation is that the lines will be revealed at 2 p.m..

Assembly members reportedly were emailed their lines late last night. It is unclear when Senate Republicans will reveal their maps. Some details have leaked out and it looks like the maps could be majorly disruptive to a number of upstate incumbents including Sen. Neil Breslin,  Assemblymen Bob Reilly and Jim Tedisco. The Times Union reported that Breslin’s district could be cut in half to create the 63rd Senate seat in an effort to allow Republican Assemblyman (and reality TV star) George Amedore to run for the Senate. Breslin predicted to the Gazette late last year that the lines would be decided in a court battle and that the Giants would win the Super Bowl.

The Republican announcement could be tied to negotiations with Gov. Andrew Cuomo about a constitutional amendment to institute non partisan redistricting for the next go around–in ten years.  One has to wonder if they have waited til Thursday to release the lines, why they wouldn’t just wait until Friday. Friday is always the preferred day to bury unpleasant news.

Sen. Liz Krueger is getting tired of waiting and wants to know what all the secrecy is about. She released this statement: “All this week we’ve seen leaks, rumors, and a tiny trickle of information, some good, some bad, and some very, very ugly. What the public hasn’t seen is the map, even though we all know it exists. Why the holdup? It’s deliberate. The Republicans have been keeping the public in the dark, trying to manage expectations instead of letting New Yorkers see what they’ve cooked up and judge it for what it is.”

Rising Voices note: This post written by Melissa Ulbricht was originally published at the Mobile Media Toolkit site and it is republished with permission.

NT Mojos, a project Australia's Northern Territory, empowers indigenous people to have a local voice and to provide a less marginalized view of everyday life by enabling them to create and share mobile stories.

In a crisp, 6-minute mobile video, Gerald Yawulkpuy introduces the local news from his community.

Welcome to Ramo News – all the news from Ramingining. My name is Gerald Yawulkpuy, good evening.

Tonight, the very successful Youth Week Program. The Court in town for the first time, and the opening of our wet season swimming pool.

But first of all, an update on the critical situation in Ramingining about the road conditions and the fuel for the power station.

Gerald is just one of a growing number of mobile journalists, or Mojos, creating video stories from remote regions in the Northern Territory of Australia. He learned how to use an iPhone kit to create, edit, and upload news stories as part of a project called NT Mojos, which is funded by the Australian government in partnership with Burum Media and the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education.

The project empowers indigenous people to have a local voice and to provide a less marginalized view of everyday indigenous life in Australia by enabling trained reporters in remote communities to create and share the stories most important to them. The final videos are posted on a government site as well as here.

A Passionate Leader Brings Energy to the Project

When it comes to NT Mojos, the executive producer Ivo Burum wears many hats. It was his idea to launch the pilot after over 30 years of experience in the field as a reporter and broadcaster. Most recently, with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Burum taught people to use small cameras to create and deliver content for television, including shows like Race Around Oz.

“While mobile is quite new, the concept of people creating self-shot content is not,” he said. With NT Mojos, Burum is revisiting lessons from earlier experiences with user-generated content, but instead of focusing on large infrastructures such as television programs, is spending money on training in indigenous communities.

As part of his daily work, Burum travels to remote communities in the Northern Territory to help select participants and lead the trainings. For more on the project, watch this documentary on The Making of NT Mojo:

Says Burum, “I take Mojo quite seriously. It’s a real opportunity for people to change their lives and to create a citizen voice — and that’s what is important.”

It’s More about the Story and Less about the Technology

In selecting Mojo participants for training, the first step is to engage the community and talk to local elders to see if they want to be involved. If they do, Burum meets with them to help select candidates. In one eager community, 15 people lined up to join the training. “It’s not difficult to sell the idea to communities,” Burum said. He also brings in existing media centers and indigenous engagement officers to help choose participants.

For the pilot, 9 Mojos were chosen from 6 communities in the Northern Territory: Galiwin’ku, Lajamanu, Numbulwar, Ramingining, and Wurrumiyanga (Nguiu).

Training is initially held at the Batchelor Institute, where Burum and others teach aspects of storytelling as well as technical skills on iPhone mobile journalism kits. After the training intensive is complete, the Mojos return to their communities, ready to hit the ground running. “One of the goals is to get Mojos to a point where they can make stories without continued support from myself or the Institute”, Burum said.

The bulk of the training focuses on fundamentals of journalism and teaching the who, what, where, when, and why of story construction, as well as being an ethical storyteller or journalist. The tech stuff comes more naturally. Burum said that when the Mojos first got their hands on the iPhone kits, they immediately began recording, before they were even taught how. “It seemed intuitive”, he said.

Each Mojo receives a “kit”, based around the iPhone 4. Other hardware components include:

• An OWLE Bubo mount for the camera. This helps stabilize the phone and allows for other external attachments.
• A multi-directional mini shotgun microphone, which is attached to the OWLE case.
• A small rechargable LED light. This helps for recording at night or in low conditions.

The kit that includes an iPhone costs less than $900 AUD.

NT Mojos use Vericorder’s 1st Video editing app, chosen because it allows editing on up to four tracks of audio and two tracks of video and has super and subtitle features, essential for indigenous language work. It also has a resume function that enables the app to re-start uploads from a drop out point, in case of a temporary loss of signal. In the remote regions of the Northern Territory, most of the uploading is done via a 3G network instead of over WiFi.

Stories are shot and edited directly on the phone, and uploaded to the Internet when complete.

Education and Income

It was not too difficult to get funding for the project. For one, Burum Media has a good track record with media production in Australia. Second, timing was right. The government is looking for ways to engage with remote communities and help “close the gap,” Burum said. “NT Mojos is a way to bridge a divide between white and indigenous Australia.”

Another ongoing issue in this region is education and literacy. Because NT Mojos teaches story-telling first and technology second, the project is “as much about increasing literacy levels and helping people think about their environment and how to convey those thoughts and stories,” Burum said.

After returning to their communities, the trained Mojos are able to report on any story they choose. It is important to teach journalism concepts of defamation, libel, and story accuracy, as the NT Mojo’s were not clear about this. “When you are speaking about issues you are passionate about, you want to be sure you can broadcast and share the stories with a larger audience without fear of libel actions,” Burum said.

These larger lessons contribute to the sustainability of the project, as does continued involvement within the community, from elders, teachers, and media centers. Burum’s goal, he jokes, is to not have to go back to regions where he has taught.

A key to sustainability is to link income to skills learned. Following the Mojo's success at the Fist Full of Films festival in Darwin, ABC asked if nine of the original trainees could contribute to the public broadcaster as paid freelance stringers based in the remote communities. “That’s a wonderful thing because education is one thing, but creating jobs after you are educated in a remote community is another thing,” Burum said.

Burum believes another important step on the road to sustainability is to integrate Mojo into the education system in remote schools in the NT. “It’s critical to get these natural storytellers thinking about story telling the modern way as early as possible and that’s the way mojo is heading in the NT — into schools as part of the curriculum,” he said.

Burum has also launched a version of the project in China, called Ningbo Mojo. The pilot began with 10 mojos and 4 teachers from Nottingham University in Ningbo, China in June 2011. The same iPhone kits and Vericorder apps are used, though Burum finds that upload issues arise more often due to Internet censorship in the country. “Despite the restrictions, the Ningbo mojos from the Nottingham University Television Station used mojo for their broadcast work including filming a media conference in Ningbo.” Another introductory and intermediate workshop is planned in Ningbo this year.

The Burum Media mojo package has also been delivered to a secondary school in Melbourne and to ‘J’ students at Deakin University. Burum has tips on mobile journalism at the How To Mojo blog and more NT student videos on his YouTube channel. More info on the My School Mojo package can be found at www.burummedia.com.au.

For more guides on mobile audio and video reporting, see this list of iPhone tips from the International Journalist’s Network, this how-to guide on Mobile Audio Recording from the Field, and the Mobile Media Toolkit sections on Creating andSharing Mobile Content.

Photo courtesy of Ivo Burum.

Written by Eddie Avila
· comments (1)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

The best stories of the week from across the web on e-books and self publishing

1. NBC News enters e-book business (Deadline New York)



2. How iBooks Author compares to the competition (Mashable)



3. Amazon: Early data shows Kindle Owners' Lending Library increases sales (paidContent)



4. Is Apple's iBooks Author the right e-book creation tool for journalists? (Online Journalism Review)



5. Should we differentiate between e-books and books? (eBookNewser)



6. How Graphicly will help self-published digital comic books (VentureBeat)

#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:500px;}
Sign up for our weekly E-Books and Self-Publishing newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung.

1. Facebook: Average journalist has seen 320% uptick in subscribers since fall (10,000 Words)



2. New York Times disputes claim that Daily Mail is largest newspaper in the world (BuzzFeed)



3. Netflix: We do not want to facilitate cord cutting (AdAge)



4. BuzzFeed's future looks like a newsier Facebook news feed (Atlantic Wire)



5. How CNN's iReport vets citizen content (Poynter)



6. Ad QR codes proliferate in magazines (Online Media News)



7. How to win a Facebook audience: Be topical, ask questions and tell jokes (Nieman Lab)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Education content on MediaShift is brought to you by:

Innovation. Reputation. Opportunity. Get all the advantages journalism and PR pros need to help put their future in focus. Learn more about USC Annenberg's Master's programs.

As debris from the firewall that once separated journalism from the business of journalism continues to fly, a new educational landscape is developing, one that supports and trains those straddling the line.

American University is the latest to add to that, expecting soon to launch a full-fledged graduate degree in news entrepreneurship.

The faculty at the Washington, D.C.-based AU's School of Communications has OK'd a new 10-course, 20-month Master's in Media Entrepreneurship, and expects formal approval from the university this spring. Kickoff would be next fall.

'A Whole New Mindset'

Half of the program's dozen or so initial participants are expected to be journalists. But by creating a nights-and-weekends program targeting mid-career professionals, AU hopes to draw a mix of innovators from Washington's entrepreneurial community.

Among the possible players would be media investors, consultants, publishers and others in the tech startup crowd, as well as executive-level managers from media, public relations and the NGO world.

"It's a whole new mindset," said AU's Amy Eisman, who will be the new program's director. "This is a town where everyone is looking to move information from one place to another ... This gives a lot of people a place to find a home for their ideas."

Biz School Bent, J School Rent

The school has been testing the waters for several years with entrepreneurially focused media courses taught by faculty like Digital First's Jim Brady and Steve Buttry, PBS.org's Tom Davidson, former Gannett sales director Bill Day, longtime digital content exec Howard Parnell, and Lynette Clemetson, founding managing editor of the Washington Post's TheRoot.com. Jan Schaffer of J-Lab, a longtime incubator for news entrepreneurs, worked closely with Eisman in designing the program and will teach the opening seminar.

The program also builds on the success AU has had with other weekend programs aimed at working stiffs, including a decade-plus-long weekend M.A. program in interactive journalism.

[Disclosure: AU has been a sponsor for PBS MediaShift, promoting its M.A. program.]

There's a collaborative, cross-school feel to it, with four of the 10 courses being taught through AU's Kogod School of Business, with faculty who run its entrepreneurial program. They'll teach core courses for the new masters that focus on entrepreneurship, management, finance, marketing, media law and technology management.

Where the Rubber Hits the Road

Several new courses are being developed for the program as well, Eisman said. One will focus on managing media technology systems -- from software to agile development to how to manage projects.

Another course will spotlight how to manage audiences -- that is, how to identify, measure and monetize them.

There will also be a "capstone" course where "the rubber hits the road," Eisman said. Participants build, package, then pitch their projects to industry leaders or venture capitalists, ultimately for real funding.

Leg Up In World of Numbers

The AU master's program follows a plethora of earlier entrepreneurial journalism training initiatives that aim to help prepare journalists for a world of startups and new business ventures, where they'll need to have a handle on the figures to go along with their facts.

Digital media entrepreneurship courses are offered at Stanford University and University of Maryland, among others, while training programs can be found at the Knight Digital Media Center at USC and Poynter, and centers for digital media entrepreneurship at Syracuse University's Newhouse School and Arizona State's Cronkite School. And that's just part of the list.

But a big splash in the field was made last year by CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, when it piloted a program that has since become the nation's first entrepreneurial journalism master's program. [Disclosure: I teach at CUNY, but have no direct involvement in its entrepreneurial journalism initiatives.]

'The More Programs the Better'

The CUNY program runs four semesters, with entrepreneurially focused courses grouped into a five-class intensive final semester so mid-career journalists can participate in a certificate version as well.

The full program launches this month. Three participants, newly minted journalism grads with projects to nurture, will get the entrepreneurial masters. Another dozen -- mostly career journalists, with some media managers and tech startup survivors -- will get the certificate.

Jeremy Caplan, education director of the program, said last winter's pilot, with 10 participants, yielded some useful lessons, among them the need to tap more directly into the wealth of New York's startup culture.

And while a number of student projects last year managed to get seed funding, mostly through grants, the school also recognized the need to help students hone their project pitches more before they present to a panel of venture capitalists, journalists and other experts.

Caplan has his eye on the AU program, too. "It'll be interesting to see the direction that program takes," he noted. "From our perspective, the more programs the better, and we're excited to see a flourishing of interest in the subject."

A. Adam Glenn is associate professor, interactive, at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and a longtime digital journalist and media consultant. Connect with him on Facebook or LinkedIn, and follow his Twitter feed. This monthly column draws liberally from conversations about digital journalism teaching practices on the online educators Facebook group of the Online News Association. The ONA Facebook group is currently a closed group but you can view ongoing conversations (see our group Q&A tracker), or join in via ONA membership.

Education content on MediaShift is brought to you by:

Innovation. Reputation. Opportunity. Get all the advantages journalism and PR pros need to help put their future in focus. Learn more about USC Annenberg's Master's programs.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Last week, I sat in a conference room in Dorchester, Mass., with some of the great minds of public media to recommend which 10 producers and public media stations should be supported for year-long projects to transform the industry.

Localore is a new $2 million national competition produced by the Boston-based Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), with $1 million in funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to catalyze producer-led innovation teams at local stations. Here at Zeega, this is particularly exciting because we'll be teaming up with several of the winners as creative technology partners. (For more info about Zeega, an open-source platform for creating interactive projects and documentaries, see this and this.)

To be paired with producers, stations had to produce a video to describe what made them the perfect hub for innovation. In a pretty amazing showing, 61 stations across the nation -- from Native American reservations to statewide networks to major market radio and television outlets -- added their profile to the Localore Station Runway. More than 130 producers applied with their ideas for Localore projects. The winners will be announced on February 1.

For us, these projects will play a leading role in defining much of what Zeega becomes during this early stage. Our partnership with Localore matches the strategy we've envisaged for ourselves from the beginning -- we believe firmly that great storytelling and storytellers should drive the design and development process. As opposed to traditional software development that begins with generic specs, we're committed to building out Zeega's core features through real projects tied to real producers, communities and users. And importantly, as opposed to just ending up with a bespoke mix of technology experiments after Localore ends, these projects will make a lasting contribution to the tools for public media. There will be a set of content-driven features in Zeega that will be made available for other producers and a set of rigorously documented open-source code that can be further expanded.

The Localore initiative is an outgrowth of MQ2, the AIR-driven effort that first funded Mapping Main Street, thus planting the seeds for Zeega. The Localore teams are tasked with bringing their ingenuity to blend digital and broadcast technology, and invent new forms of journalism that will appeal beyond public broadcasting's traditional core audience.

To complement this technological innovation, the initiative is based in specific geographic communities in order to deeply enrich local reporting and community engagement. This push for localism comes at a time when commercial station owners in the U.S. continue to divest their investment in local talent and stations.

Don't have iframes? Visit http://airmediaworks.org instead to see the Localore Station Runway.

Media theorist Marshall McLuhan said, "It is the artist's job to try to dislocate older media into postures that permit attention to the new. To this end, the artist must ever play and experiment with new means of arranging experience." For us, it's about searching for means to create new possibilities with what currently exists, making it, and in the process, often subverting the intentions imagined by a technology's original creators.

We'll be back with more at the beginning of February when we can share the winners!

Will City Hall grant an exception to the hiring freeze so that the Civilian Complaint Review Board can hire a lawyer and independently prosecute police misconduct?

To follow up on my last post, Being pretty isn’t enough for social media success, I wanted to discuss what I like to call Social Media Isolationism or Social Media Agoraphobia. And there are two forms of this sort of isolationism: invitational and exclusionary. They both mean you don't venture outside your own four social media walls; however, the first is welcoming and the other is dismissive.

The welcoming pineapple

Jay Gatsby was a welcoming pineapple. He desperately wanted to woo his beloved Daisy and opened his grand home hoping he just might, one night, find her at one of his lavish parties. Or, at the very least, create enough buzz so that his lost love might hear of him and ask about him.

Not always the direct result of a grand romantic gesture, the welcoming pineapple is often associated with the feeling that one is so appealing, so compelling a brand, product, or service that your friends and neighbors should very well come a-calling. You host awesome dinner parties, right? You have the biggest television, have your own pool and tennis court, and have several guest rooms. Why would you ever want to leave your own social media home?

Why wouldn't everyone want to take advantage of your generosity and party favor to want to go anywhere else, to say nothing of staying home in their pallid, beige, one-bedroom apartments? This generosity often comes with the stink of superiority or ego that eventually turns people off.

And if the proffered goodies are so compelling as to compel, this commitment might very well be contingent only upon the bounty, the booty, the swag lavished. In other words, your friends are bought and paid for and are your friends forever (or until you run out of cookies and candies and a subscription to cable).

In terms of a country, this open-border country would be glad to allow anyone in but since this country is obviously so awesome, offering everything and anything you could very well ever want in the first place, people just visit, nobody really ever leaves and a majority don't even possess a passport.

Good fences make good neighbors

There are other social media isolationists who treat their following like a gardener maintains a Bonsai tree: letting it grow then pruning it back. Limiting its natural growth patterns with the goal of cultivating something elegant, controllable, exceptional, and beautiful — and planned. The operative word here is control.

There is a strong desire among the good fences variety of social media isolationists to want to maintain a semblance of control over brand perception, brand response, and brand buzz. This social media isolationist would surely turn off (or moderate) comments if at all possible.

This form of social media agoraphobic never lowers himself to engaging with riffraff and never suffers fools gladly. In many cases, he blocks competitors, rarely follows anyone back, and limits real engagement to the worthy and the notable. Only A-listers need apply.

This is the sort of social media expert who most likely has a pristine living room with white couches and chairs neatly enshrined in a clear vinyl cover. This is the sort of person who collects beautiful heritage silver and china, never to see the copious staining gravies and beet juice of a holiday dinner.

It doesn't matter that social media is, by its very nature, chaotic, organic, anonymous, spontaneous, unpredictable, and crazy; it means nothing that the life of something beautiful can readily be strangled out of it when the collar's too tight; and it means nothing that your detailed business plan and marketing strategy may be too macro, too myopic — that what you've made exclusively for one use may well be adopted "off prescription" for something completely different and more profitable — something this sort of isolationist would very well never be able to see.

And, if he could, he wouldn't want it that way because that's not the right way and it shouldn't be done this way. Social media's just not cricket.

In terms of a country, this walled-up land would be glad to exclude everyone; but, more realistically, it's willing to limit visas and green cards to only the pedigreed: money, power, influence, esteem, connections, or education. Full funding for controlled borders and everyone had better carry their papers with them. I mean, why allow anyone in, since this country is obviously so awesome.

A majority possess passports; however, why leave? Too much chaos, uncertainty, and people who don't look like the sort of people they're used to.

Social media globalists unite

Neither the welcoming pineapple nor the good fences are effective in social media marketing because there are innately no borders in the Internet. Yes, maybe there is are language and cultural barriers, but these are as meaningless as the lines that separate nation states.

The Internet has rendered the world flat. Facebook is expected to reach a billion members in April.

And that's to say nothing of the bloggers, the tweeters, the pinsters, the borders, the messengers, the redditers, the diggers, the flickrers, the tumblrs, the googlers, and, yes, even the spacers — they're global, they curious, they're ambitious, and they have as much right to your attention as anyone else.

Whether you're an exclusionary or inclusive isolationist, you're still unwilling to leave your social media homeland. You're unwilling to go out there and meet your future real best friends. Instead, you either having to buy them or remain too afraid and afeard to make friends at all--or at least the wrong type of friends.

To be sure, you'll never know where your next windfall will come from. You also don't know who that fairy godmother is or what she looks like. It's essential to get out there and spend some of your time and energy going exploring, finding new lands and new faces, and expanding your natural core, your natural base.

While there may well be zero barriers to you because the Internet has flattened the business world for you, there are also zero barriers between you and your best future customers! So, go git 'em Tiger!

Via BiznologyChris Abraham is a partner in Socialmedia.biz and co-founder and principal of Abraham Harrison LLC, an international consulting group with specialties in online word-of-mouth/conversation marketing and online business & technology strategy advising. See his profile, contact Chris via email, Twitter, or leave a comment below.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported.

When it comes to the mission of journalism, it's hard to imagine any function more fundamental than providing people with the information they need to choose their elected representatives. That's why the first major initiative of the Knight News Innovation Laboratory, announced this week, will focus on coverage of the March 20 congressional primary elections in Illinois.

There are 25 contested primaries in Illinois' 18 congressional districts, the first elections under newly drawn district boundaries. As a result of the decennial redistricting process, many people will be choosing among candidates they know little about. Many of the districts are huge, extending across the circulation areas of multiple newspapers and even different television markets. At a time when traditional news organizations are shrinking, it can't be good for democracy that it could take a reporter most of a day to travel from one end of a district to the other.

The mission of the Knight Lab, a joint program of Northwestern University's journalism and computer science programs, is to "accelerate media innovation" in the Chicago area. The primary elections initiative takes into account the new realities of media and politics today, including candidates' extensive use of social media and the fragmentation of the news audience.

The project's three main elements are:

• Candidate profiles from a social media perspective, including analysis of what the candidates tweet about and what their followers tweet about;
• An aggregation tool that collects coverage of individual congressional primary races from many sources;
• A simplified snapshot of campaign contributions that focuses on the geographical profile of each candidate's contributor base.

All of these components will go live on www.congressionalprimaries.org in early February. More importantly, they are being offered -- at no charge -- to web publishers large and small. The Lab's goal is to have the election coverage distributed through as many news outlets as possible.

News organizations can use the Lab's congressional coverage to serve their users, adding their own branding and navigation to pages hosted by the Lab. Or news organizations can use "widgets" that incorporate elements of the coverage into their websites. Either way, they get coverage of the campaigns that goes beyond what any one organization can provide itself.

The elections initiative incorporates technology approaches that my Northwestern computer science colleagues have specialized in for years: powerful web searching, content categorization and extraction of meaning from editorial content and social media. By making these technologies available to local news media in connection with an important news event, the Lab seeks to whet publishers' appetite for innovation and build their interest in collaborating with media they might also consider to be business competitors.

After the primary, the Lab's leadership team will review the results of the elections initiative and consider expanding on it for the November general election.

Details about the congressional primaries project are available in two PDF files on the Knight Lab website: a project overview and FAQ. The Lab is reaching out to potential partners throughout Illinois and adjacent media markets to explain the project in greater detail. Potential partners can also contact r-graff@northwestern.edu to get a head start on customizing the services. 

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung.

1. Users can't opt out of Google's new privacy changes (Washington Post)



2. Facebook plays instant feedback of State Of The Union  (All Facebook)



3. Can Yahoo's new CEO end the media vs. tech debate? (GigaOm)



4. Former L.A. Times editor jumps to KPCC to oversee broadcasts, online news and more (The Wrap)



5. How Amazon Publishing will get its books into Barnes & Noble (paidContent)



6. Millennials drawn to SOPA news coverage (Online Media News)



7. Gannett acquires Fantasy Sports Ventures to deepen online sports reach  (Online Media News)



8. Increase your click-through rates on Twitter (ReadWriteWeb)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!

#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;} Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

If drugs were legal, my friend Andrew would not have died Sunday night.

This was not my first reaction. My first reaction was unfocused rage (which itself seems to be a coping method when faced with overwhelming sadness).

read more

Though it's a relatively new idea, the phrase, "We're all publishers now" already has become somewhat of a cliché.

Seriously. Let me Google that for you. I'll wait while you go look ...

Back? See what I mean? More than a full page of results with that exact phrasing.

While it seems very democratizing, and it is, what many don't realize is that "we" doesn't refer only to individual bloggers. Brands are publishers, too, providing their own content and bypassing many of the old routes they used to use to get the word out.

When "True Blood" was getting ready to premiere its fourth season, the usual press releases and preview copies went out, but the show's biggest splash was on Facebook, through an app called Immortalize that created a custom video for each user, integrating them and their friends into a show scene filmed just for the app.

Once people started posting the video in their streams, it took off.

Or take Mint.com. The personal finance startup was operating on a shoestring in 2008. It smartly focused on building up content on-site -- articles, infographics -- not advertising Mint, but providing actual information and data useful to its users.

The content got shared, buzz was built, and in no small part due to that marketing approach, Mint was acquired in late 2009 by Intuit for $170 million.

We're all publishers now.

The idea of branded content is not really new, but it is kind of new that it's being done well. In their own way, advertisements are branded content, but their message and goal were abundantly clear: Buy our stuff. Content today? Not quite as clear. And it is neither bad nor good -- it just is. Some of the content is horrid. Some is quite excellent or entertaining.

The Infographic

Some are claiming infographics have jumped the shark. While there's some validity to that, there are still many visualizations out there that are quite excellent.

Infographics has become a catch-all phrase for visualizations of data or concepts. As mentioned above, Mint.com pioneered in using these to build traction.

An excellent example of an infographic that isn't really a graphic: "A Visual Guide to Inflation." Mint is a consumer site, and many of its users may not really understand the mechanics of inflation. By presenting the information with both images and text, Mint is making it simpler to understand. And it's providing a useful service to its users.

Let's get real -- part of the goal here is for others to pick up the infographic and run it on their sites, and to link back to Mint. On the Internet, a quality link is worth its weight in SEO. But Mint is still considering the needs of its users and providing content that makes sense.

The video

A lot has been said about the Old Spice man -- "the man your man could smell like."

Sure, sure, the commercials were hilarious and well-done. But they were still advertisements. There have always been some that caught on and became a part of the public discourse. Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" in the 1980s, Budweiser's "Whasssuuup?" at the turn of this century.

What made the Old Spice video campaign so much more was the series of videos that they did afterward. Making a huge number of super-quick videos responding to dozens of Twitter users -- famous and not -- was a genius move, ensuring that there would be tremendous sharing and viewing of these.

Even the most random responses got hundreds of thousands of views. And on every single one of these videos, the words "Old Spice" were featured prominently in the title.

Isaiah Mustafa, the main character, didn't have to even mention Old Spice in any of the videos if it didn't fit. The company created videos that everyone wanted to watch and share and provided a much longer shelf life than just the commercials themselves.

The photo

Photo-sharing apps are all the rage with kids these days.

The most popular among them is Instagram, and few have used it as effectively as Burberry. The iconic British fashion brand has more than 157,000 followers. The brand's average photos get thousands of likes and dozens of comments.

They're a mix between shots from fashion shows, photos of London, and close-up detail of products.

People follow Burberry because they're getting a behind-the-scenes look and the images are always stunning. The quality of the photos is top-notch, and they're not just all about the brand.

They all relate to the brand, however -- few things are more London than Burberry, in an iconic sense.

And you will catch sight of that signature plaid every now and again, lest you forget whose account you're following.

The feature article

In all honesty, this isn't really being done very well by many places. A lot of emphasis is being put on visual content, not as much on helpful articles that provide value to readers/customers/users.

Content farms have had a lot to do with that, I believe, but smaller shops such as Contently are rising up to become the anti-farm and provide solid blog posts.

In my quest to find some decent blog posts by brands, I happened upon H&R Block's blog (I was drawn there initially due to some infographics, I might add), and found some valuable posts, including one titled, "Save Money with these Eight Tax Tips."

Similarly, I was drawn to CreditSesame's blog by an infographic and found "Safeguard your Identity While Shopping Online."

In both cases, these articles were useful to their core audience. They weren't flashy or showy, but they had actual utility. Those aren't blog posts that are going to draw someone to their blog, most likely, but they are articles that might keep someone there for a while longer.

Did I mention we're all publishers now?

So what does all this mean for the future of the traditional content producers? The newspapers, books, TV stations, radio stations, et al?

It just means that we all need to make sure we're providing some sort of value to our readers.

That value can be informative, entertaining or instructional. But whatever it is, it's competing with ever-improving content created by companies with deep pockets. These brands and companies don't need anyone else to get their message out to their customers anymore.

For the so-called content creators -- writers, photographers and videographers -- it actually means more opportunity, not less.

Amy Vernon spent nearly 20 years as a professional daily newspaper journalist before the Great Newspaper Culling of 2008. She has since been featured in articles in a variety of publications and sites, including the New York Times, Venture Beat, Hybrid Mom, and OurBlook. She's an inaugural inductee of the New Jersey Social Media Hall of Fame and has spoken at many conferences and events, including SXSW Interactive (this March), Columbia Journalism's Social Media Weekend, Reynolds Journalism Institute's The Engagement Metric, ROFL Con II and Affiliate Summit East. She is married and has two young sons. Amy also is known as the Bacon Queen of the Internet. She will be speaking on the topic of the ubiquitous publisher at the upcoming South by Southwest festival in March.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

There's a wonderful magic wand that every member of a digital newsroom wants to get their hands on. Take control and you can work wonders, untangle the world wide web of information, and even decrease your workload to fit in that extra cup of coffee. "What is this wand?" you ask, and "How can I get my hands on it?"

It's the wondrous API (application programming interface). At ScraperWiki, we provide the tools to custom fit your wand to your magical purpose. Learn a couple of incantations in either Ruby, Python or PHP and you can concoct an API of web data -- only the relevant data, in the way you want to use it.

The real power in this way of using data is the ability to fuse APIs from other services and build a whole new tool. For example, this was done by a new startup called Tropo, and here you can see a screencast on how to use Tropo and ScraperWiki to quickly and easily build an airport information system for the Philadelphia International Airport.

A lot of journalists are using our site to tap into the Twitter API. We think that many more might take up a bit of programming wizardry if they could cast their spells under cloak and dagger. So we have created vaults for making your scrapers invisible to everyone else on the web. Here's what one looks like. It's not self-service at the moment, but if you're interested in gathering and managing data for embargoed stories then get in touch with us here.

Also, if you want to work some data magic with developers, journalists, social scientists and the data-curious, keep an eye on our events. The first Journalism Data Camp kicks off at Columbia School of Journalism on February 3.

By Robert Niles: So, is Apple's new iBooks Author the solution for journalists looking for a simpler way to get into the eBooks market? Nope, not even close. Oh…kay, so is Apple's new iBooks Author at least another option for writers looking to pick up some extra money writing eBooks? Sure. Apple released its new eBook production tool last week, coupled with an upgrade to its iBooks app. Apple's trying to get into the textbook market, positioning its iPad as an electronic textbook reader. But to do that, Apple needs an ongoing supply of eBook textbooks. The company's signed deals with some textbook publishers, but it's also offering the iBooks Author tool to encourage more people to create texts, as well. The iBooks Author app's gotten plenty of attention since its release for its user license restriction that any book created with it can only be sold through the iBookstore. No Amazon. No Barnes and Noble. While iBooks Author can export files as a PDF, it won't generate the ePub file needed for best results in publishing eBooks through those and other online vendors. That alone disqualifies the iBooks Author app as a serious option for any journalist looking for a single eBook creation solution. Better to continue creating an HTML file using your favorite editor, then running that file through Calibre to generate your ePub, which you can submit to Amazon, BN.com... and the iBookstore. The iBooks Author app also requires that you be running Mac OS Lion - it won't download to Macs running Snow Leopard or earlier versions of the Mac OS. And if you're using Windows? Fuggedaboutit. But if you do have Lion, creating a book through iBooks Author and selling it exclusively through Apple is better than not making or selling eBooks at all.

Two familiar firearms were used in the shooting of NYPD Officer Peter Figoski. Chris Opfer takes a look at the guns New York's criminals prefer.

[Because i worked at a newspaper and part of what i did there was write obituaries, i've written one each for my grandmother and my father. I realize since starting this (and turning to an opinion piece instead) that it is not my place to write an obituary for Andrew, but instead to simply give testimony to the parts of his life it was my honor to be part of.]

read more

The best stories across the web on journalism and digital education

journalism.

1. Study: iPad is a solid education tool (Wired)



2. The 6 things you learn as a journalism mentor (Poynter)



3. Lazy higher-ed journalism (Inside Higher Ed)



4. Why to embrace social media in the classroom (TeachHUB)



5. Teachers on Twitter: It's all about the hashtag (TeachHUB)

#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;} /* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */

Get the weekly Journalism Education Roundup email from MediaShift

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Somalia is one of those developing countries which end up in world media for all the wrong reasons: civil war, famine, drought, Somalian pirates are to name a few. With the help of an Ushahidi based platform “Somalia Speaks“, Al Jazeera English is aggregating unheard voices from inside Somalia via SMS. The responses are translated into English and finally plotted onto a map. People can also send in a report via SMS to an international number and submit comments online including video links, photo uploads, and text descriptions.

Somalia Speaks is a collaboration between Souktel, an NGO providing SMS messaging services, Ushahidi, Al Jazeera, Crowdflower, and the African Diaspora Institute.

Patrick Meier of Ushahidi explains in a post at Ushahidi blog:

The purpose of this project is to catalyze global media attention on Somalia by letting Somali voices take center stage—voices that are otherwise not heard in the international, mainstream media. If journalists are not going to speak about Somalia, then this project invites Somalis speak to the world themselves. The project highlights these voices on a live, public map for the world to bear witness and engage in a global conversation with people of Somalia, a conversation in which Somalis and the Diaspora are themselves at the centerfold. It is my sincere hope that advocacy and lobby group will be able to leverage the content generated by this project to redouble their efforts in response to the escalating crisis in Somalia.

Souktel sent out the question “How has the Somalia Conflict affected your life?” in Somali language to about 5,000 of their subscribers in geographically disbursed areas. Somalia Speaks received over 3000 replies in text messages, which were translated, categorized and geo-located using this crowdflower plugin. Co.exist reports quoting Riyaad Minty, Al Jazeera’s head of social media, how the crowdsourcing works. There were amazing responses from the online Somali-speaking community, who volunteeed to translate the sms reports. The mapped reports are also linked to a public discussion forum where readers can respond and share their views.

Melissa Ulbricht reports at PBS's Mediashift:

Souktel's Korenblum said that in a five-year period leading up to 2009, mobile phone penetration jumped 1,600% in the Somali region; Souktel has been delivering service in the Horn of Africa since 2008 and has a member SMS subscriber list of over 50,000 people. [..] Reaching out to citizens via SMS, then, makes sense.

Al Jazeera's Soud Hyder said the news network is looking at how to streamline news gathering workflows to get news directly from the people: “It's like taking citizen journalism to the next level.”

A reader, Awaale, commented at Ushahidi blog that people in Somalia understand that SMS is between just two people. So they may respond to the Souktel SMS without knowing that their name will be displayed in Internet exposing themselves to the warlords. He was replied with an assurance that the Al-jazeera team had deleted all personal identifiers from the public site.

Mobile Media Toolkit has a complete case study on this project.

Written by Rezwan
· comments (0)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

It was about five o’clock in the morning when Cindylu, with her sweet little voice — all chamomile and honey — says, “Oso, you should probably put some vaseline in your butt crack.” That’s when I knew I was in for more than I had signed up for.

It all started back in late October within the walled, corporate confines of Facebook. 2011 was already coming to a close. I was in the midst of switching jobs, switching homes, and was ready to set some goals for myself. Either you make a map for your life or your life makes a map for you.

I wanted to run a marathon. A full fuckin’ marathon. 26.2 miles. I’d already told myself the same damn thing at least five times in my life, but I always wimped out and went for the half instead. This time no more wimping out. I just needed to find the right marathon and the right people to train with me.

One Facebook post and 15 comments later, and it was set in stone: On January 22 I would run the Carlsbad Marathon with a group of people who knew me better than just about anyone else in this world; only we had barely ever met. (Elenamary, she’s written all about it.)

Not that I was 100% confident that we would all come together. We had tried a few times before (eg. 2005, 2006), but for some reason or another, it always fell through.

Cindylu & Tumbleweed

This time it happened.

5 a.m. We’re all silently shuffling around in the morning, pinning our running bibs to our shirts, rubbing in the sunscreen, putting down the first cup or two of coffee. And I’m contemplating whether or not I’m gonna put Vaseline in my butt crack.

Tumbleweed and I left the house first; each of us sufficiently delusional to sign up for the full marathon. (“26.2 miles,” read one sign we passed, “because 26.3 miles is insane.” Damn straight.) We got to the course at 5:55 a.m., just enough time to pee out the morning cup of coffee and walk to the finish line. We agreed to keep each other company for the first six or seven miles and then we’d each run at our own pace. (“Don’t shoot out too early” was the unintentional double-entendre of the previous night.) We crossed the starting line surrounded by a sea of running shoes lightly shuffling along the dewy, predawn pavement. I had forgotten just how serene and idyllic North San Diego County is, especially on Sunday mornings.

The soft oranges and grays of the sunrise made their first, unhurried flirtations as I threw my fleece on the sidewalk like so many others. “Don’t worry, it’ll be donated,” Tumbleweed assured me. We mostly made smalltalk during the first five miles, steadily picking up the pace from our first 11-minute mile, to 10-minute miles, to 9-and-a-half. We high-fived each other goodbye halfway up the major climb, somewhere around mile 8 or 9. I had told everyone who asked that I merely wanted to finish the race, that I wasn’t running for any particular time. But secretly I wanted to cross the finish line under four hours.

Somewhere around mile 14 we merged with the half marathon runners right at the coastline. I was listening to Revaz’s 2011 Sedatives podcast; “John Taylor’s Month Away” by King Creosote & Jon Hopkins came on just as I arrived to the coastline. Something magical happened, some kind of endorphin-stimulated rhapsody. I felt so at peace, so strong, like I could have run 300 miles without ever tiring. I had forgotten how much I missed the coastline, the waves crashing against the gray, sandy shoreline after their weeks’ of journey across the Pacific.

At mile 19 I was still feeling good, too good. Back in Mexico City, after 18 miles of running my body and spirit were ravaged, but at oxygenated sea level I was full of life. Sadly, it was lodged into my misconceiving brain that a marathon was 23 miles, that I had just four miles to go. I switched the iPod to De La Soul and started to pick up the pace. At mile 20 I was probably running a 7-minute mile pace, flying by just about everyone. I figured, hell, I just needed to hold on for three more miles and it was all over. I thought I would make a 3:30 total time. It was a couple hundred yards before mile 23 when I realized my great blunder. I still had another three miles to go. And my legs were about to give out on me. All of a sudden my calves felt like concrete. I slowed from a 7-minute pace to a 12-minute pace, humbled by every runner that I had sprinted by who now caught up and passed me by as I was hunched over in pain and embarrassment.

By mile 24 I knew I had to pick up the pace if I wanted to cross the finish line under 4 hours. I knew my body would cooperate if my brain could trick it.

Mario was there to cheer me on for the last .2 miles which gave me just enough of a boost to cross the finish line with style. I crossed officially at 3:57, just under four hours, and then my body shut down as I was told that it would.

Post-Race. Everything hurts. Photo from Cindylu

By 3 p.m. we were all back at the house, mostly awake, mostly stumbling around in a stupor. Thanks to HP’s impeccable taste in water, we were drinking Bud Light, grilling up hamburgers, talking shit … essentially, being Americans. Too tired to say anything of significance, I sat back and observed.

I realized that we all grew up as black sheep. For varying reasons, none of us quite fit into our surroundings. We all had something to say, but somehow didn’t know how to say it until we found one another. It’s not like any of us were loners. We all had friends, but for whatever reason those friends weren’t able to grasp something about us as well as a group of complete strangers that came together in some small slice of that thing formerly known as “the blogosphere.”

As I and countless others have already written countless times, the golden age of blogging is over. It’s been replaced by content farms that know how to neatly pack byte-size info-snacks under sexy headlines and algorithm-driven social networks that get to know us better than we get to know ourselves. But few understand just how golden, just how formative, those early years of blogging were.

These people surrounding me, they were my mentors. They helped me grow into who I am today.

I realized something else that evening as we hugged goodbye. It’s ok that we’re not bloggers anymore; now we’re friends … even if it does take a marathon to get us together.

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung

1. WaPo's managing editor leaves for WSJ digital post (Nieman Lab)

2. ABC News And Yahoo! launch political web shows (TVNewser)

3. NBC News enters e-book business (New York Times)

4. Study: Consumers say social marketing is invasive (Online Media Daily)

5. News aggregator wants to "make Facebook out of Google" to bring content to consumers (TechCrunch)

6. How ABC News built a top social media following with a small team (Poynter)



7. NYT releases code to help journalists collaborate on WordPress (Poynter)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

In 1900, Ladies' Home Journal published an article containing predictions for the year 2000. Though some of the author's predictions were accurate -- Americans are indeed taller, and photographs are now sent around the world -- one key point was missing. The author didn't imagine that in the new millennium, the very magazine that published his predictions would no longer be written entirely by professionals, and instead would use technology to gather stories from everyday people.

Ladies' Home Journal is now venturing into this mostly unknown territory. Starting in March, rather than rely solely on professionals to write articles, editors will work primarily with readers who have submitted their work for consideration.

With a paid circulation of nearly 4 million, the Journal's experiment is the first time a major magazine has embraced reader-generated content in such a serious way. Editor-in-chief Sally Lee said the approach will bring fresh voices to the 128-year-old publication, reinvigorating regular readers and attracting new ones to join the magazine's community.

Providing a Positive Environment for Readers' Stories

Lee explained that there are several ways readers will be able to submit their work for publication in Ladies' Home Journal. One is by tagging a story they've sent into DivineCaroline.com, which consists of "real voices [combined] with guided editorial and the dynamism of an online community." DivineCaroline is also owned by the Journal's parent company, Meredith.

Additionally, as part of a new redesign of the print magazine, Journal readers will see "calls to action" marked by distinctive icons that show where photos, stories or comments can be submitted in response to magazine content. The redesigned cover will feature the word "Journal" more prominently to reinforce the concept. Readers whose work is accepted for publication will be compensated like the magazine's professional writers.

"We know that our readers really are very excited about this, that they really value this self-expression and want to be heard," Lee said. As an example, she described the results of a recent essay contest sponsored by the magazine that garnered 3,000 entries for possible publication in the Journal (1,000 beyond what she initially reported in her February editor's letter).

Lee said Meredith's research into this reader-generated approach showed that readers felt comfortable with the idea of publishing their personal stories in the Journal. Their impressions of the magazine were that it was "trustworthy, authoritative, [with a] deep moral code," and that it offered the right kind of "nurturing and supportive environment" for telling even deeply personal stories, she said. Readers felt a stronger sense of identification with stories written by "women just like them."

Avoiding "Magazine-Speak"

Though Ladies' Home Journal has clearly established a strong identity among its readers over its long history, Lee isn't concerned that the coherence and consistent editorial voice of the magazine will be lost as it ventures into crowdsourcing.

"Coherence comes from many different measures," she pointed out, including the unifying design features of the magazine and the tone of its stories. The magazine will also still include some content from professional writers and experts.

Readers told Meredith researchers that the magazine's reader-generated content felt like "the kind of conversation I'd have with my girlfriends," Lee said. "What we're looking for in terms of tonality is something supportive, authentic. There's an honesty to them. The other thing that came through in testing a lot, and that we had not had in the Journal before, is that people said that this stuff was fun and funny."

At least one observer has questioned how this new strategy will affect the quality of the Journal's content. Lee argued that the reader-generated stories are far from amateurish.

"I'm reading stories that would stand up to any professional writer. Some people have a way of expressing themselves that is very true and clean and unsullied by magazine-speak," she said. "We're getting fresh, clear voices that don't fall into the trap of thinking that they have to write a certain way for a women's magazine ... One of the wonderful things about working with so-called amateur writers is they don't have preconceived notions about what the magazine should be."

While these new voices are intriguing, Lee said that the reader-contributors will need some editorial assistance. Stories will be polished with help from the Journal's editors.

"Of those 3,000 stories that we've gotten [in the essay contest], probably two or three could make it into the magazine as it is. Others will have to be edited and nurtured," Lee said. "We can put writers with them to help them tell that story ... There is obviously going to be a greater editorial role. Editors have to be really sharp to bring these stories out."

Meeting Expectations with New Types of Content

Working with reader-submitted stories won't be the only change to Journal editors' workflow. The magazine also plans to identify bloggers and blog material to feature in the print magazine.

"We've found some incredible material on blogs that we think really needs to be shared with a mainstream audience," Lee said. "We can have semi-famous bloggers in the magazine that the media cognoscenti will know about, but the ordinary American woman in the Midwest won't."

Lee is especially interested in food blogs where bloggers tell how they developed a recipe.

"We have a lot of food edit, and we found out in our studies that people wanted to know the stories behind recipes," she explained. "We created a new column called 'The Story Behind the Recipe,' and a lot of bloggers have great stories ... [It] adds a dimension to have a story that makes you even more compelled to read that recipe. There's a heart and soul attached."

Blog material, however, will definitely require polish before it sees print, Lee said. She described Meredith research in which test readers were given sample magazines with writing culled directly from blogs. The writing was copy edited but still used what Lee calls the "very immediate" style of blogging. The test readers were not impressed. They demanded "more polish" from magazine content.

"There's an expectation from this brand, and from print versus online, that there has to be a degree of polish," Lee said. The Journal had a decision to make. "How authentic were we going to be? What was the language we were going to use? Language used in blogs is very different from what's used in formal writing," she said.

Because the test readers included both regular and potential Journal readers, Lee believes that many of these audience expectations were based upon the print format itself. Readers might accept a casual style or lax editing online, but when they purchase a magazine, they feel differently.


"That's where the curation of the stories comes in. Every story in that issue has to sing. It's not like I'm drifting through Facebook, and some of that stuff is great, some of it's not great, but it's forgiven," Lee said. "With a magazine, it's coming into their home. It's a certain number of pages. There's no sense of forgiveness. You really have to be on your game, because they pay for it."

Creating the right blend of reader- and expert-generated content for an established magazine is certainly a new game. The success of Ladies' Home Journal's experiment will likely set the ground rules for other magazines to follow.

Susan Currie Sivek, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Mass Communication at Linfield College. Her research focuses on magazines and media communities. She also blogs at sivekmedia.com, and is the magazine correspondent for MediaShift.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

When we started work on Awesome News Taskforce Detroit, I knew that getting a diverse group of people involved from the get-go was our No. 1 priority. In the case of Detroit, that diversity must include not just gender and racial diversity, but also geographical, class and organizational differences as well.

As an experiment, I asked all of the people applying to be trustees to give us their ZIP code so we could quickly identify if we were having trouble attracting geographical diversity. Now, near the end of our recruiting process, I am able to generate this useful visualization:

Making this was dead easy because there is a vibrant ecosystem of tools for creating your own maps about physical geography. When it came to visualizing and sharing organizational geography, however, there is a surprising dearth of tools available to the lay-organizer. I'm hard-pressed to think of a more recent widely adopted advancement on this front since the Rolodex?

When newcomers land in a city, they have maps to situate themselves and locate their necessities. It shows them where things are and where things could be. Maps show not only what is, but also what is not yet, which is incredibly valuable for entrepreneurs, innovators, and community builders.

When a newcomer to the world of doing good wants to know the landscape, however, the standard practice seems to be finding a seasoned veteran in the field and asking about who they know, then following the branches of those leads selectively and recursively. This system relies on the immediate memories and dot-connecting abilities of the organizers that serve as nodes.

It works, but it's fragile at best and vulnerable, exclusive, and simply inefficient for getting a bird's eye view of the whole system at worst. What we need is something like professor Xavier's Cerebro, a powerful tool for finding other potential allies.

Back in Detroit, I started using a mindmapping tool, MindNode, just to start keeping track of the organizations I had approached, and others that I had heard of. I grouped these roughly by field (technology, arts, media, etc.) and annotated them with whether I had met and connected with the groups.

When I started working with a community organizer, this map, crude and information-poor as it was, facilitated a conversation about who we had already talked to and where we needed to focus our efforts in a way that was surprisingly effortless. We moved to a version hosted in the cloud, MindMeister, and she helped me add to it while we worked to recruit trustees.

Similarly, when new people approach me to ask about Detroit, I just share the map with them. Incomplete as it is, many are surprised by the variety and quantity of organizations making efforts to improve the city.

One of the biggest complaints I heard from organizations in Detroit about the newcomers was that they didn't know who they weren't talking to. It is easy enough to go to a place and believe that you have met everyone important if no one ever mentions the other players in the game. With just one click, this map goes a long way toward fixing that.

I'm still in disbelief that I haven't found a (more) standardized format for sharing one's knowledge about the organizational landscape of a community, and that public sharing of this knowledge is not a common practice. This kind of information silo makes sense in the context of competition among non-profits for limited funding, but seems so archaic in the age of the internet. If you're an organizer, try this exercise and compare notes with a friend! Let's figure out the framework for building maps to chart the intangible landscapes of our neighborhoods.

Image of tourists with map courtesy of Flickr user Ed Yourdon and used under the Creative Commons license.

Possible Changes to MSSD

Deaf at The Drive Thru

A housing project in Brooklyn that would provide 1,800 new apartments is delayed by political infighting.

The best stories of the week from across the web on e-books and self publishing

1. Apple unveils iBooks Author, a Mac app for easy interactive e-book authoring (GigaOM)

2. New York Post launches new Kindle Fire App (FishbowlNY)


3. Do tablet apps and e-books spell the end of pop-up books? (The Daily Beast)

4. Universities test buying e-books in bulk (Sacramento Bee)

5. E-books don't replace the real thing (The Daily Cougar)

#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:500px;}
Sign up for our weekly E-Books and Self-Publishing newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung

1. AP CEO Tom Curley, who led company into digital space, to retire (Poynter)

2. Twitter reacts to death of Joe Paterno (Mashable)

3. White House joins Google+ (Los Angeles Times)

4. Apple enters the $8 billion industry of K-12 textbooks (paidcontent.org)

5. Tablet and e-reader sales soar (New York Times)

6. Twitter's Jack Dorsey talks social, SOPA and Asia (All Things D)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

A new generation of young women has begun to make their mark online, combining entrepreneurial energy with the hardwired digital fluency that typifies the so-called digital natives.

Here are two stories of such women, both 26 years old, who jettisoned their office jobs to create online media outlets designed for young women like them. For these women and others like them, the decision to embark upon these web-based ventures was not revolutionary. To them, the "digital media revolution" has receded and they're simply operating in the only media environment they've ever known.

The Daily Muse: Work, Inspired

Kathryn Minshew hadn't been interested in starting a website for young professional women. As an undergraduate at Duke, she had no particular predilection for women's issues, and she didn't belong to any women's groups. So when, last month, Forbes featured Kathryn in its "30 Under 30" article for her leadership of The Daily Muse, the wildly successful career- and lifestyle-focused online magazine, it was an accolade that was unforeseen by her former self.

Kathryn, who's moved her publication (and herself) out to San Francisco to participate in an incubator program, recently told me that her passion for female-oriented career advice developed gradually. "I was surprised when I applied to a position at [management consulting firm] McKinsey, and they had a separate information session for women." After she landed the job, however, she began to observe the complex gender politics amid the corporate environment. She noticed how uncomfortable women were when asking for salary increases, foregoing a bonus check for $10,000 herself simply because it didn't occur to her to ask for it.

She scoured the web for sites that offered professional guidance to young women like her, but her search was fruitless. So she partnered with friends Alex Cavoulacos and Melissa McCreery to create their own. Today, The Daily Muse has a formidable readership, with a staff of five and more than 140 writers contributing content nationwide. The site's articles are syndicated on Forbes and the Huffington Post, and Kathryn's modest ambition of targeting an otherwise underserved demographic has been regarded in media circles as prescient. She herself explains that investors are "shocked to learn that there are no other sites" that are designed and deployed for professional women.

"Kathryn saw a need and filled it," said Rachel Sklar, media entrepreneur and adviser to The Daily Muse. "She recognized that not only was there a huge market of young professional women being pumped out of colleges every year -- but that there was key information that they weren't getting. Fixing those information asymmetries is extremely powerful -- and damn good business. And it's their niche, because they made it."

Big Girls, Small Kitchen: A Guide for Quarter-Life Cooking

Phoebe Lapine was bored by her first office job after graduating from Brown. She remembers sitting down at a Thanksgiving dinner when her cousin interrupted her workaday complaints by asking her, point-blank, what she'd rather be doing. She thought about it a moment and then replied, "writing a cookbook."

Knowing, instinctively, that the boundaries between media were becoming increasingly porous, Phoebe called Cara Eisenpress, a cooking friend of hers since high school and, together, they started a cooking blog. They knew that they wanted to focus on young women who, like them, were facing the challenges of limited resources. So they came up with the title, Big Girls, Small Kitchen as an online "guide to quarter-life cooking."

According to Phoebe, they "started off slow, meeting at coffee shops after work or sneaking out to plan recipes on [their] lunch breaks." They didn't get a lot of traffic but were seen by the right people. Before long, a literary agent who had taken notice of the site approached them, and they had their deal for a cookbook. "In the Small Kitchen" was published in May and is currently available on Amazon.

While Phoebe had pretty swiftly accomplished her goal to write the cookbook, she and Cara decided to reinvest a significant portion of their advance into the website, transforming it to a more thorough resource for the community of young chefs that had begun to follow them. Phoebe recounted her literary agent's advice: "A book is something that goes on the shelf. It could be hidden discontinued, and you have much less control. It's more static. The site is something you have more control over. It lives on beyond the book and gives a rich opportunity for interaction with your audience."

What she didn't expect, however, is that the development of a more polished and attractive site actually decreased the amount of user-generated comments and contributions. She and Cara speculate that it may have been difficult for her audience, which was used to a shabby-chic site, to be greeted by something that had a more professional design. Cara observed, "When we did our first redesign, we were so sick of having an ugly old blog that we over-corrected and wound up with a homepage that was beautiful but static, even boring. It took a few months, but we were just able to go into another design phase and play with the elements until they felt vibrant."

Now, as they embark on their new venture, Small Kitchen College, they're applying their learned lessons to create community for the culinarily curious college student. With nearly 40 student contributors, they are harnessing the collective contributions of people with shared interests, much in the way The Daily Muse has done.

These are just two examples of young media-minded entrepreneurs who are noticing barren spots in the media landscape. They understand that people with similar interests to their own are being underserved by the the current catalog of media offerings, and so they're deciding to insert their own voices into this otherwise vacuous lull. As more and more digital natives come of age and instinctively exploit online opportunities in the way that Kathryn and Phoebe have done, the digital media landscape will become more verdant and variegated for it.

Mark Hannah is the director of academic communications at Parsons The New School for Design. Coming out of the public relations world, he has conducted sensitive public affairs campaigns for well-known multinational corporations, major industry organizations and influential non-profits. Mark worked for the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign as a member of the national advance staff. He's more recently worked as an advance associate for the Obama-Biden campaign and Presidential Inaugural Committee. He serves on the board of directors of the National Association for Media Literacy Education, is a member of the Public Relations Society of America and was a 2008 research fellow at the Society for New Communications Research. He holds a B.A. from the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania and a master's degree from Columbia University. He can be reached at markphannah[at]gmail.com

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

The shift from print to mobile reading went into overdrive this holiday season, with ownership of e-readers like the Kindle and tablets like the iPad doubling in a single month.

A new survey-based study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that the percentage of adults owning tablet computers went from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January, with the same growth rate seen among black-and-white e-readers like the Kindle.

Source: The Dec. 2011 and Jan. 2012 Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

So how should content providers and publishers react to this news? As the founder of e-book publishing startup BookBrewer, I live and die by these kinds of numbers, and they're obviously good for us. But they should serve as a wake-up call for traditional publishers -- especially newspapers, magazines and book publishers that still manage their businesses around shrinking print audiences.

LOOKING AT THE NUMBERS

The Pew study said tablet and e-reader adoption sped up due to holiday gifting, but it was amped by two new value-priced color tablets: Amazon's $199 Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble's new $249 Nook Tablet, both of which are far below the iPad's $499-$829 price point. Amazon doesn't release exact figures on the Kindle Fire, but investment research firm Morgan Keenan recently estimated that Amazon sold 4-5 million Fires over the holidays at the expense of 1-2 million iPads that Apple would have sold absent the Fire.

Also noteworthy in the study is that the sex divide has disappeared -- at least for tablets. In November of 2010, 60% of tablet owners were male. Today? It's at a healthy 50-50 male to female ratio. Curiously, black-and-white e-readers went in the opposite direction, with women now making up 57% of of e-reader owners. (My theory on that based on e-book sales data I'm privy to as the owner of BookBrewer is that romance e-books play a role, but I digress.)

In both cases, people with more education and higher incomes were more likely to own a tablet or e-reader, although the difference was slightly less for e-readers.

GOODBYE PRINT?

So what's left for the print market? This is a valid question because the contrast in trends for tablets and traditional print couldn't be more stark. Think about it. In just one month the number of people with a sexy new device that can display books, websites and streaming video doubled. When's the last time you saw those kinds of figures for mass-market newspapers or magazines?

What's more, these tablets are generating significant sales from content after very little time on the market. An RBC Capital analyst projects that the brand-new Kindle Fire will make Amazon $100 over the lifetime of the device. The revenue comes directly from sales of e-books, apps and streaming content from Amazon.

Compare that to Pew's figures on yearly newspaper revenue, which has been going in the opposite direction for some time.

Having been completely out of the newspaper industry for over two years, I see the glass as more than half full, but I keenly remember how it felt to work for a newspaper and feel tied to a tanking business model. That's partly why I've been urging journalists and news organizations to repackage and publish their content as e-books. E-book sales were surging even before the numbers looked this rosy, and they represent a new way to monetize content without advertising.

And here's the great news there. I now have multiple, solid examples that readers buy e-books about news.

Our first news partner, The Huffington Post, has published several e-books through BookBrewer that quickly moved into the No. 1 spots of their categories -- including this latest about the Occupy Wall Street movement. And we're seeing a similar effect with The Denver Post's first e-book about Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos. Based on these successes, we're openly looking for more news organizations that are ready to jump into the e-book world with both feet, so let me know if that means you or your organization.

WHERE PRINT STILL SHINES
To those of you who mourn the loss of the feel of a printed product in your hand, don't fret. Print is not completely dead. If you think of the digital revolution as a play, print is going through a wardrobe change.

Here's just one example. On January 8, we started pre-order sales for the Post's Tebow book as a Print on Demand paperback through our partner Consolidated Graphics. Even though readers have a choice between e-book and print, we've been amazed to see the print orders outpace the e-book orders by a 3-to-1 ratio. The book's print pre-order sales reached $23,000 in just 10 days, and they show no signs of slowing down.

I heard something similar from the folks at O'Reilly Publishing at a session I ran at their recent NewsFoo camp in Phoenix. Founder Tim O'Reilly told participants that his company sells twice as many e-books from the O'Reilly website than it does directly through Amazon. Those e-book sales are high, but print sales still make up at least half of their business. More and more of those print books are printed on demand from online orders, too.

GIVE INFORMATION CONSUMERS WHAT THEY WANT

Here's what I see as the broader trend. It's not the printed book itself that's dying, but rather the way that books are mass-marketed, shipped to physical book stores, retailed, sold at a loss, and ultimately shipped back to publishers for a refund. (And what does that tell you about my view on daily newspaper delivery? It should be obvious. Stop the insanity! Newspapers should be personalized and on demand, too.)

On the same note, the growth in tablets and e-readers says more about peoples' desire for convenience and choice than it does about gadget lust.

Information consumers now expect to get whatever they want, whenever they want, in whatever form they choose. Tablets, e-readers and smartphones speak directly to that need, but so does an impulse buy of a printed book that shows up at your doorstep five days later. In fact, more and more of those purchases initiate from smartphones. The need for on-demand, multi-platform publishing -- perhaps including an app or two -- has never been more important.

A presentation at the 2011 Strata conference.

The leading big data conference, Strata 2012, the leading big data conference, is coming up fast! And you can save 20% with the Socialmedia.biz discount code below.

Strata debuted to a sold-out crowd last year and has become the top event in the field for the people and technology driving the data revolution.

What: Strata delivers the nuts and bolts of building a data-driven business — the latest on the skills, tools and technologies you need to make data work.

When: Feb. 28 to March 1, 2012

Where: Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, Calif.

Discount: Register now and save 20% with discount code SOCIALBIZ

From the conference organizers:

Get control of the new data opportunity at Strata — immerse yourself in three full days of hands-on training, information-rich sessions and an Expo Hall filled with the key players and products. Strata’s topics and programs include Data Science, Business & Industry, Visualization & Interface, Hadoop & Big Data, Policy & Privacy, and Domain Data. Plus, new for 2012 are two all-day Intensive Programs: Jumpstart - the missing MBA for Big Data; and Deep Data - a no-holds-barred program with advanced technical content.

The Strata experience is made up of intensely practical sessions for both business users and hardcore technologists; success stories (and cautionary tales) from startups making data their business and established companies that are saving millions and creating new revenue streams; great networking opportunities; and keynotes that snap the big picture into focus. We hope you will join us at Strata to explore emerging data tools and technologies that are shaping the future.

JD Lasica is founder of Socialmedia.biz. We work with large companies and nonprofits on social media strategies and campaigns. See JD's business profile, contact him or leave a comment.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

Community members try to find a nuanced voice in their critique of the NYPD's stop and frisk program while dealing with the stigma of speaking out against the police.

By Ying Zhang: American journalism today is in crisis because it has not adapted financially to digital media, yet I believe we could turn this crisis into an opportunity to make significant improvements in the industry. Journalists and entrepreneurs are searching for business models that would generate revenue to help support high-quality digital media. No matter what forms they take, the newly emerged media products always should be consumer oriented. That is, the products should either meet new, unsatisfied consumer demands, or help reduce the costs of existing products or services in the market. Specially designed online educational clubs could help provide a new and effective alternative for which many consumers would be willing to pay. There is great social value in these clubs that would help draw support from outside the journalism field as well. The project could be implemented in three steps. First: Foreign Language Enhancement Journalists should start by investigating ways to combine traditional studies of foreign language with news delivery to make the learning process more interesting and cost-effective. The project is meant to establish an online portal for interested consumers to learn about different cultures, languages, and international news of current relevance. This site could also be used as a complementary tool for international affairs, world geography, or other international fields of study. An emphasis on music, video, and other modern multi-media technologies would help make the learning process more interesting and diversified. The goal at this stage is to attract paid institutional group subscriptions. These, in turn, may help attract individual and business subscriptions. Paying small fees for an online collection of existing news stories and documentations would likely help reduce the cost of labor-intensive teaching methods. In addition to accurate, in-depth, and up-to-date foreign news stories, current computer technologies would allow student consumers at different learning levels or with different career focuses to practice particular languages of their choice. The clubs also would focus on learning a language as a way to learn the values and wisdom of different cultures, to learn how other peoples make their decisions and live their lives, and to learn how they solve their problems. Therefore, these bilingual clubs potentially would provide attractive learning tools for many consumers.

Despite the cutbacks and trimming contained in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget there are areas where some folks are finding happy surprises. Sen. Liz Krueger is particularly pleased that the Governor’s budget  maintains Title XX funding for senior centers at its current level and leaves other funding for senior programs untouched.

“Massive proposals cutting support for New York’s senior centers have become a grim tradition of the budget process in recent years. I applaud Gov. Cuomo for changing that this week. While I am still evaluating the full executive budget proposal, I am thrilled to see Gov. Cuomo’s plan maintains Title XX funding for senior centers at its current level and preserves a number of other important senior assistance programs,” said Krueger

“Despite the difficult economy, we cannot balance New York’s budget on the backs of the most vulnerable among us. Senior centers are a vital support for the older adults in our communities, and I applaud Gov. Cuomo’s action on this. Hopefully this marks the end of an ugly, annual tradition of threatening support for seniors.”

Can online protests make a difference? In the past, they've had mixed success but with enough people pushing against the twin anti-piracy bills, SOPA and PIPA, the U.S. Congress was forced to pay heed. They have now put off bringing the bills to a vote, while contemplating rewrites and changes to the bills. Google alone collected more than 7 million signatures online for a petition against the bills. So what was your experience on Wednesday during the day of protest? Were you moved or unmoved? Did you take action or did life go on as normal? Share your experience in the comments below, and vote in our poll.

What do you think about the anti-SOPA protests?

For more on the protests, check out these recent stories on MediaShift:

> Mediatwits #34: SOPA Protests Make a Difference; Yang Out at Yahoo

> Your Guide to the Anti-SOPA Protests

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung

1. House and Senate leaders postpone SOPA/PIPA bills (paidContent)

2. Anonymous goes on Megaupload revenge spree (Gizmodo)

3. How journalists can use Pinterest (Poynter)

4. Facebook expands Timeline, promotes 60 lifestyle apps (Online Media Daily)

5. Apple says consumers not harmed by alleged privacy violations (Online Media Daily)

6. How Storify came to be (Poynter)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

The Ségou Villages Connection project in Mali is taking an interesting turn, in partnership with a UNESCO heritage preservation program [fr]. Boukary Konaté, a 2011 Rising Voices grantee, is currently cruising up the Niger river aboard a traditional Malian barge, docking every day in a new village to train school children and villagers to use the Internet.

The UNESCO Loire-Niger programme barge

The Loire-Niger Rivers programme [fr] supported by UNESCO-France and the Pays de Loire Regional Council, documents and preserves the Niger river cultural heritage, involving local fishermen and villagers. A 2-week tour of the villages, aboard a traditional Malian barge  has been organised to show a traveling photo exhibition. The Ségou Villages Connection was invited to join the team to expand this outreach initiative by training school children to the Internet along the way. Boukary Konaté is currently aboard the ship cruising upstream and is posting photos and dispatches about this experience.

In Sekoro, a fishermen village, capital of the former Bamana kingdom, no one had ever heard of the Internet or seen a computer. Besides, there is no electricity. Boukary Konaté taught the children how to search the Web on his solar-energy powered laptop and smartphone. “They were baffled by the fact that you can access knowledge without traveling: it travels to your place, via the Internet” he says. One little girl (pictured below) did not hesitate for a second when asked what she wanted information about: “C.A.N.” (The Africa soccer cup 2012).

A primary school girl hits the enter key for the first time, in Sekoro, Mali

Further up the Niger, in the regional capital Segou, Boukary Konaté gave a presentation on the knowledge and collaboration opportunities given by the Internet in the  Bandjougou Bouaré high school, in front of more than a hundred students. Students were then asked to search Google themselves, on a personal topic of interest.  Here are a few queries, saved by Boukary: “How to find the square root of prime numbers”, 'The life and deeds of Keita, king of the Mandingo empire“, “Books written  by Malian writer Issa Baba Traoré“; “Biography of Shaka Zulu, bravest warrior of South Africa.” “(Pop star) Rihanna“. And one of the teachers searched for TV series “Prison Break“.

Boukary coaching high school students in Ségou to search the Web

Drawing from past training sessions in the Ségou district organised by Ségou Villages Connection, Boukary travels equipped with a mobile internet USB drive to access the Web, and a portable solar-cell to charge his laptop and smartphone. He finds this a lightweight and quite satisfactory solution to connect in remote places, and even blogs on the river Niger! You can follow Boukary Konaté's daily updates and pictures on Facebook.

Blogging on the deck of the boat, on the Niger River

All pictures by Boukary Konaté and team, hosted on Briconcella's account, reproduced with permission under a Creative Commons License.

Written by Claire Ulrich
· comments (1)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

Welcome to the 34th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali. This week the show is mainly focused on the huge day of protest online Wednesday against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) before the U.S. Congress. After Wikipedia, Reddit and other sites went black, and millions signed petitions and called lawmakers, at least 40 representatives and Senators said they wouldn't support the bills in their current form. It was a breathtaking display of online organization that got results.

Special guest Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch discussed the role that Google played in educating people and helping them take action. Plus, Sullivan created one of the more creative memes by sending a telegram to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) because she didn't have an active Twitter or Facebook page. (Click the image above-left to see the telegram at full size.) In other news, Chief Yahoo and company co-founder Jerry Yang announced he was stepping down as Yahoo tries again to turn the tanker around. Special guest Eric Jackson, an activist investor in Yahoo, talks about the brightened prospects for the web giant now that Yang has departed.

Check it out!

mediatwits34.mp3

Subscribe to the podcast here

Subscribe to Mediatwits via iTunes

Follow @TheMediatwits on Twitter here

Intro and outro music by 3 Feet Up; mid-podcast music by Autumn Eyes via Mevio's Music Alley.

Here are some highlighted topics from the show:

Intro

1:10: Rafat is going away to get married and to take a long honeymoon trip

3:00: There are more serious issues that should get this much attention

5:00: A clear explanation of the SOPA and PIPA bills before Congress

7:15: Rundown of topics on the podcast

Huge day of protesting SOPA online

8:00: Special guest Danny Sullivan

11:10: Sullivan: Big media companies should make content easier to find, buy

13:00: Should be an easier way to pull down infringing sites

15:10: Sullivan explains why he did the telegram for Sen. Feinstein

19:00: Obama comes out against the bills in their current form

Yang out at Yahoo

20:20: Special guest Eric Jackson

22:40: Jackson: Investors have shied away from Yahoo stock

25:40: Jackson is heartened by new CEO Scott Thompson

28:00: Jackson: Shareholders could get a special dividend

More Reading

SOPA protest by the numbers: 162M pageviews, 7 million signatures at Ars Technica

Your Guide to the Anti-SOPA Protests at MediaShift

Put Down the Pitchforks on SOPA at NY Times

Where Do Your Members of Congress Stand on SOPA and PIPA? at ProPublica

Protect IP Act Senate whip count at OpenCongress

Senator Ron Wyden To The Internet: Thank You For Speaking Up... But We're Not Done Yet at TechDirt

With Twitter, Blackouts and Demonstrations, Web Flexes Its Muscle at NY Times

Google Blackens Its Logo To Protest SOPA/PIPA, While Bing & Yahoo Carry On As Usual at Search Engine Land

Protests lead to weakening support for Protect IP, SOPA at CNET

Jerry Yang's Departure Means Major Transformations for Yahoo! at Forbes.com

Yahoo's Yang is gone. That was the easy part at CNET

With Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang departed from board, Yahoo seeks a new course at Mercury News

Weekly Poll

Don't forget to vote in our weekly poll, this time about the anti-SOPA protests:

What do you think about the anti-SOPA protests?

Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. and Circle him on Google+

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Mapping can be as much about choosing what data not to include as to include, so you can best focus your audience on the story you are telling. Oftentimes with data visualization projects, the story isn't about the streets or businesses or parks, but rather about the data you're trying to layer on the map.

To help people visualize data like this, I've started to design a new minimal base map for OpenStreetMap. What's great about OpenStreetMap is that the data is all open. This means I can take the data and design a totally custom experience. Once finished, the map will serve as another option to the traditional OpenStreetMap baselayer.

I'm designing the new map in the open-source map design studio TileMill, which Development Seed has written before about here. The map can be used as a light, very subtle background to add data on top of for use either with our MapBox hosting platform's map builder or on its own. It still provides the necessary geographic context for a map, but moves the focus to the data added on top of the map -- and not details that are irrelevant to its story.

Here's an early look at the features and design aspects I've been working on for the map.

Portland, Ore., on the new OpenStreetMap minimal base map.

Behind the design decisions

I used the open-source OSM Bright template that you can load into TileMill as a starting point for the design and removed all color, choosing to limit the palette to light grays. For simplicity, most land use and land cover area types have been dropped. However, wooded areas and parks remain, indicated with subtle textures instead of color. The fact that OpenStreetMap's data is open gives me full control of choosing exactly what I want to show up on the map.

The style now includes more types of roads. Tracks have been added, as have pedestrian routes, bike paths, and bridleways, which are shown as dotted lines. Roads without general public access (for example, private roads) are shown faded out. The rendering of overlaying tunnels, streets and bridges has also greatly improved, with most overlapping lines separated and stacked in the proper order.

Overlapping bridges in Boston.

Coming soon: OSM Bright

Many of the adjustments that I've made for this minimal style are things that can be pulled back into the OSM Bright template project. I'll be working on doing this in the near future as I wrap up work on the minimal design. Keep an eye on GitHub for these improvements as well as our blog for information about when the minimal design will become available for use.

MapBox for design

If you're interested in making your own custom maps, try using TileMill to style your data and pull in extracts from OpenStreetMap. Documentation is available on MapBox.com/Help. We are close to launching TileMill on Windows, so that in the coming weeks anyone using Windows, Mac or Ubuntu operating systems will be able to easily design custom web maps. You can see a preview and sign up for updates on MapBox.com/Windows, and we'll post details here on Idea Lab once it's available.

For more information on these tools and on hosting plans to share them online, check out MapBox.

Queens groups are split over how they want to see legislative districts drawn in their communities.

The day of protest against the now (hopefully) infamous "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) and "Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011" (PROTECT IP Act, or PIPA) has ended.  Baffled students can once again access Wikipedia to do their homework; the Google doodle is no longer blacked out; and Jon Stewart can return to lampooning Republican presidential candidates rather than obtuse copyright bills.

Mission accomplished, right?

Actually, no.  It's only just begun.

To be sure, the protest was incredibly successful at drawing attention to the threat that SOPA and PIPA pose to online speech. Google News tracked nearly ten thousand stories on the bills – a number far, far above average for a single news event. Wikipedia's users were shocked into awareness of SOPA and PIPA, thanks to the site's 24-hour blackout. And the tallies on ProPublica's snazzy SOPA Opera page, which tracks Congressional support and opposition for the bills, literally reversed overnight, as members of Congress stampeded from the pro-SOPA/PIPA camp to the anti- side.

But while the public's increased awareness of the bills (and the corresponding pressure they have placed on their Congressional representatives) is welcome, "We're not done yet," as Wikipedia said in a post-blackout statement.  The actual legislative battle over the bills still lies ahead – PIPA comes up for debate in the Senate next week, and SOPA will follow next month in the House. 

So netizens seeking to protect the Internet from this legislation must stay aware and active, and not rest easy just because the blackout was a media success. The bills' proponents are still out there (if fewer in number), and they're still "out there." 

Former Connecticut Senator and now MPAA head lobbyist Chris Dodd criticized Wikipedia's blackout as an "abuse of power," adding – apparently without awareness of the irony – that "It's a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests."  SOPA sponsor Representative Lamar Smith of Texas – and whose knowledge of copyright law is somewhat suspect – called the blackout a "publicity stunt," and claimed that the bill "will not harm Wikipedia, domestic blogs or social networking sites." PIPA sponsor Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, apparently not understanding what the protests are about, avers that "Protecting foreign criminals from liability rather than protecting American copyright holders and intellectual property developers is irresponsible, will cost American jobs, and is just wrong."

And there are still renowned legal sages out there, like the members of the Boston Herald editorial board for example, who are positive that SOPA is meant for "one purpose and one purpose only — to punish the theft of intellectual property on the Web by foreign sites," that "the bill is already heavily weighted on the due process side," and that "cyber-bullies" like Google and Wikipedia should stop throwing a "hissy-fit."

But despite the incisive arguments of these jurisprudential masters — who are in no way biased for being employed by Hollywood (Dodd), being recipients of $100k+ in media campaign contributions (Smith), or being part of the dead-tree media that's desperately scrabbling to recover any revenue it can in the Internet era (the Herald) — there are actually pretty good arguments that SOPA and PIPA are gross infringements of First Amendment rights. 

The articles written by the bills' opponents are too numerous to summarize them all, but there are a number of good places to start if you want to know more.  The Berkman Center (which itself does not endorse any particular policy re: SOPA/PIPA, though it encourages members of its community to speak their minds) has compiled a list of the personal responses to the legislation from various Berkfolk. Harvard Law professor and Constitutional expert Laurence Tribe also has offered a rigorous exposure of SOPA's First Amendment violations, and a veritable host of law professors (including several with Harvard and Berkman ties) have signed a letter critiquing PIPA and calling for its rejection.

So now is not the time for opponents of SOPA and PIPA to stand down.  To paraphrase John Philpot Curran, the condition upon which the Internet hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.  The blackout did what it was supposed to and drew attention to the legislation, but until the bills are actually torpedoed, we'll have to keep up the pressure.

Arthur is the research attorney and editor for the Citizen Media Law Project at the Berkman Center and a correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor.  He tweets occasionally at @NominallyBright.

(Image from anti-SOPA/PIPA protests in New York City courtesy of Flickr user mobius1ski licensed under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.)

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung

1. TV news starts covering SOPA after fleet of major sites go dark (TV Newser)

2. Did the anti-SOPA protests work? (PC World)

3. Apple unveils iBooks Author, an app for easy self-publishing (GigaOm)

4. Why the news industry should mimic Hulu, Netflix (Nieman Lab)

5. Julian Assange, of WikiLeaks, talks to the Rolling Stone (The Rolling Stone)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!





#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}

Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

No, really:

Associated Press opens news bureau in North Korea | World news | guardian.co.uk.

…As if the news business wasn’t already Kafkaesque. Well, AP is an appropriate choice for this. 

Having done some critical coverage of several boneheaded AP strategies in digital media over the last few years, I think they see eye to eye with NK regarding the dangers of criticism, and how to respond to it.

I’m not kidding: See the response from Paul Colford, AP’s director of media relations, to a 2010 KDMC story I wrote about the controversial AP News Registry program

We announced PRX's partnership with the Knight Foundation to create the Public Media Accelerator about a month ago. Since then, it's become clear that the accelerator concept is new to many people in the non-profit and public media worlds, even as tech folks fret that accelerators have jumped the shark.

Our tagline for the Public Media Accelerator is "seeking mission-driven entrepreneurs changing media for good." We're in a time of remarkable technology innovation, and our goal is to channel the forces driving that growth towards public service media.

The two forces, the tech sector and public media, need each other: The tech sector will gain from public media's high-quality content, commitment to community, and public service mission; and public media will gain from technology's network efficiencies, professional and social connections, and radical new distribution paths.

As we spend the early weeks of this venture fleshing out our thinking and surveying the landscape, I thought I'd share both a snapshot of the accelerator scene and some of the issues triggering discussion at the Public Media Accelerator.

What's an accelerator?

Accelerators are organizations focused on early stage investment in technology startups, providing a mix of financing, mentorship and other support to help launch new companies with the potential for explosive growth.

Most accelerators boil down to a few essentials:

1. Funding -- Typically for-profit accelerators provide $20k-$50k and take approximately 5% in equity.
2. Founding teams -- The participants are small teams, often 2-3 people, who are proto-founders of a company organized around a product/service vision.
3. Program and process -- The accelerator creates a structure and curriculum, typically offered in an intensive residential 2-3 month sprint.
4. Networking and expertise -- There's enormous value in the accelerator's ability to match teams with experienced mentors, advisers and investors who assist the teams on design, product, marketing, business development, and more.
5. Space and logistical support -- Often there is co-working space and light infrastructure support for the teams during the in-person sessions.
6. Demo day -- The process culminates in a showcase of the team's products at a "demo day" for investors and press.

Accelerators are popping up all over. TechStars, one of the leaders in the field, has even franchised the model to support new accelerators around the world. Xconomy tracks 64 of them in its latest annual report. Budding entrepreneurs, faced with so many options, can use the "Unified Seed Accelerator Application" form to apply to numerous accelerators in one fell swoop.

A growing trend that includes the Public Media Accelerator is "vertical" accelerators that focus on a particular industry, platform or other niche. Examples include Rockhealth, which targets startups in health care and FinTech for financial tech. There are a growing number with social missions, including one of my favorites, the Unreasonable Institute. And just last week Code for America announced a forthcoming accelerator targeting "civic startups."

accelerators shifting into high gear

With so many groups with money and advice to give, are there enough takers? The answer is yes -- plenty, in fact -- although there is growing competition for the best teams and ideas. The fact is that today the costs of creating a startup are much lower by virtue of cloud computing and other tech efficiencies; the growth of Internet and mobile access has created a global market and means of distribution; entrepreneurial culture has taken root among enterprising developers; the high-profile successes of Internet startups and Y Combinator/TechStars alumni have inspired follow-on models.

The most obvious and meaningful benchmark of success is the number of companies in the accelerator's portfolio that secure follow-on financing, and, further downstream, a successful "exit" in an acquisition, IPO or profitability.

While the ingredients for what goes into an accelerator can be broken out and reassembled, the special sauce is the unique mix of the accelerator management team's judgment, talent, relationships, experience, and pure luck of the draw in shepherding companies through to further funding, growth and profit.

It's clear that public media needs its own accelerator -- attuned to the needs and assets of the industry and connected to the talent and energy in the broader technology and media world.

The PRX Knight team has our own special sauce, but our measure of success is not profits and exits per se -- it's furthering the values and impact of public service media, with sustainability and revenue being critical to create a lasting effect. We decided early on that the Public Media Accelerator would look for both for-profit and non-profit opportunities (something Knight Foundation has started to explore recently through its Enterprise Fund).

There are a number of for-profit organizations in public media -- production companies, service providers, subsidiaries, etc. But the vast majority of the system -- local stations, distributors, and national networks including PRX itself -- are non-profits. And many of the sources of revenue are contingent upon non-profit status -- CPB grants, foundation and government funding, individual donations, FCC-regulated broadcast sponsorship. To my knowledge, there are no venture-backed companies focused on public media, in part because a traditional definition of the market is too small to target.

finding the right mix of for-profit and non-profit

So why would the Public Media Accelerator be open to for-profit investments? Would the same ingredients hold together in a purely non-profit context? How do we harness the for-profit energy that attracts top talent and aligns incentives in the standard accelerator model, while advancing the mission-driven principles at the core of the venture?

First, while we will not restrict the accelerator to one funding path, we recognize that for-profits and non-profits require different structures and approaches to be effective. In some cases we will help pioneer new hybrid models that straddle both.

Second, we want to overcome the inherent weaknesses of the grant-driven, project-based funding that has been the means of innovation funding in the industry to date. These efforts tend to be incremental, short-lived, and at best result in "sustaining" rather than "disruptive" innovation (using Clayton Christensen's well-known construct). It's not hard to see why disruptive innovations tend to come from outside successful organizations and industries rather than from within. The Public Media Accelerator has the opportunity to change this dynamic: Knight and PRX have significant standing and relationships in public media, but are also accomplished risk-takers without the legacies and limits of many public media institutions.

Third, we see the accelerator model as a way to attract new talent into the field. While we anticipate working with a number of the current forward-leaning teams within the industry, our opportunity is to expand the pool, and inspire and enable a new cadre of public media entrepreneurs (also address the developer gap I blogged about here recently). We take our own inspiration from Mozilla, Wikipedia, Code for America, and the growing number of mission-driven technology efforts that aspire to and achieve success on an Internet scale. Technologists and entrepreneurs want to make meaningful things, and public media should embrace them.

What are we looking for?

We've said two areas of interest are mobile and monetization, but we are also intentionally leaving a wide open door for ideas that break the mold. Our evolving list of criteria includes:

Mission-driven: The ideas should encompass public media's mission and values as an impact goal, not merely a side effect.

Disruptive: We're excited about ideas that change the game through some systemic or business model insight, more so than smart improvements to the way things already work.

Scalable/replicable: Ideas should have the potential to scale to significant impact and business sustainability or be replicable by others.

The Public Media Accelerator is not a content fund, but we'll seek to connect content in ways that deepen its value and impact and address the business model of its production and distribution.

We still have a number of open questions as we get underway, but rather than attempt to answer them all, we're taking our own advice and launching the Public Media Accelerator as a lean startup of its own -- building as we go, trusting in a talented team, being ready to pivot, actively networking and learning from advisers and mentors, and relentlessly focused on the mission of transforming public media. (We are still accepting applications for the director position, a terrific opportunity to help lead the media revolution.)

Follow us on Twitter (@publicmediax and on the Public Media Accelerator site.

An innovative Australian public journalism project has partnered student reporters and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation with a refugee support agency and a social media startup.

The aim of the project, #ReportingRefugees, was to tackle problematic media coverage of asylum seekers and refugees in a volatile political climate in parallel with educating students to connect with a "citizens' agenda." The result was a student takeover of the airwaves in Australia's national capital and a fundamental shift in attitudes.

MediaShift correspondent Julie Posetti anchored the project at the University of Canberra where she teaches journalism. This is the first in her two-part series on #ReportingRefugees.

Problem: Divisive & Xenophobic National Debate

For the past 15 years, racist and xenophobic political memes have dominated public discussion of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia, with asylum seekers who arrive by boat demonized as threatening aliens by politicians whose divisive messages are fanned and fed by inflammatory headlines and tabloid TV.

In this climate, and on the back of involvement in a substantial national research project on the reporting of multiculturalism (which led to me theorizing about the potential transformative impact of minority encounters on journalists), I decided to embark on a public journalism project with my final-year University of Canberra broadcast journalism students.

The end result was two hours of radio journalism, fueled by collaboration and social media, that gave a much-needed voice to refugees, a better understanding for the public of the complicated issues surrounding them, and important lessons for those of us working on the project.

Journalism Partnerships For Change

#ReportingRefugees was built on partnerships that I forged with 666 ABC Canberra, the ABC's radio station in the Australian capital; Canberra Refugee Support, the city's best-known organization for refugees and asylum seekers; OurSay, an innovative crowdsourcing startup; and the School of Music at the Australian National University, also based in Canberra.

I made my first approach to CRS, and their initial response reflected the impact of xenophobic political campaigns and media stereotyping: They were reluctant to get involved. CRS President Geoff McPherson said concerns about resourcing the project were also paramount. But I persisted, pursuing meetings and arguing the merits of interventions in journalism education and public journalism approaches in tackling problematic reporting of marginalized communities. The proposal was for CRS to facilitate contact between student journalists and asylum seeker-refugee clients and provide advice on relevant policy and community programs, with the aim of minimizing any potential harm to vulnerable interviewees and assisting in the development of culturally intelligent reporting on a complex and often poorly reported issue.

Ultimately, just a fortnight before the project kicked off, CRS agreed to participate. "The judgment of the CRS board was that the potential return on this project far outweighed the risks and (we) decided to proceed," McPherson said, reflecting on the project at its conclusion.

Collaborating with Australia's Public Broadcaster

By contrast, the ABC was keen to be involved from the outset. They were even prepared to hand over two hours of airtime on their main Canberra radio station to the students. They agreed to allow the students -- under the joint editorial supervision of the ABC, me and my tutors -- to report, produce and present a radio special devoted to #ReportingRefugees which was scheduled for broadcast on November 27 last year -- three months from the start of the project.

Jordie Kilby, ABC 666 Canberra content director, explained the network's motivation for involvement: "We hoped for an insightful look at the local community of refugees living in the Canberra region; we wanted to build on our relationships with local refugees and asylum seekers and the community groups that help and support them. We also hoped the project would give us an opportunity to look at some future journalists and their ideas and work."

Original Student Compositions Score #ReportingRefugees

By this stage, my ANU School of Music collaborator, Jonathan Powles, had agreed to offer his students the opportunity to produce original scores to accompany my journalism students' stories. Apart from being an interesting cross-disciplinary education collaboration and a potentially rewarding creative merger for broadcaster, teachers and students alike, the provision of original music for the planned radio program meant that the ABC would also be able to podcast the show. (Copyright laws in Australia prevent the podcasting of commercial music broadcast on radio.)

Giving Citizens a Say

Finally, I decided to approach OurSay -- a Melbourne startup which partners with media organizations, universities and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to crowdsource questions designed to address the "citizens' agenda." They jumped at the chance to be involved, and we launched the project's OurSay page which asked the public to identify the questions they most wanted answered by a panel of experts on asylum seeker-refugee policy during the ABC broadcast.

OurSay's CEO, Eyal Halamish, explained the role of the platform in the project: "Especially on such a contentious issue as that of refugees and asylum seekers, where the mainstream media latch onto sensationalist, short-termist news instead of taking a broader view, a social tool such as OurSay can help set the agenda more effectively and help express what the public feels about an issue, as sourced from their own questions and comments." It worked like this: Over the course of a month, OurSay users were asked to submit the questions they most wanted put to the panel, and the top five questions were selected by popular vote on the site.

The #ReportingRefugees Curriculum

With these #ReportingRefugees building blocks in place, I was able to finalize the structure of the project within the syllabus. This was no easy task! Trying to balance learning outcomes and university assessment policies against real-world media deadlines is always tricky. But doing so on a project seeking to break new ground through multiple public journalism partnerships, on a complex and sensitive reporting assignment, proved to be the most challenging teaching project I've ever been involved with. Fortunately, it also emerged as the most rewarding experience of my journalism education career.

#ReportingRefugees became the foundation of the Advanced Broadcast Journalism unit (a class of 50 students) I convene at UC. I gave lectures on public journalism (featuring the work of professor Jay Rosen and others) and reporting trauma in the social media age. I also devoted a lecture to a live Skype interview with the ABC's South East Asia correspondent, Zoe Daniel, whose beat includes the massive refugee camps and asylum seeker communities of that region.

The major assessment required students to work in reporting duos networked via loosely themed production units, on original, long-form audio or audio/video stories about refugees-asylum seekers (or policies and programs pertaining to them) which would compete for selection in the final radio program. Additionally, they had to produce images and text to accompany their stories for online publication. They were encouraged to speak with, not just about, refugees-asylum seekers and to explore personal stories and angles that the media had largely overlooked. Some reporting duos were assigned to refugee-asylum seeker families and community services facilitated by CRS, while others independently identified stories and sources.

Assessing Audience Engagement and Reflective Practice

Additionally, the students were required to maintain Twitter feeds (with a focus on community building around content, crowdsourcing and content distribution) as part of an "audience engagement" assessment. They also needed to participate in Facebook groups dedicated to editorial management. The final assessment involved publication of an academically grounded reflective practice blog which required the students to critically analyze the project, their involvement in it and their experiences of it, with reference to scholarly readings.

Students' Perspective

So, what did the students think of the project at the start? Many have admitted they were daunted by the theme and the workload when they first heard about it. One, Ewan Gilbert, conceded he was initially a tad perplexed: "I went into the assignment thinking it was all a bit over the top." But Gilbert, now a cadet journalist with the ABC, clearly understood the project's purpose in retrospect: "I think one of the biggest barriers people face when it comes to understanding refugee issues, is that most Australians have probably never met one," he blogged. "Putting a face to an issue was so important to helping my understanding of the problems. You learn to treat the issue with humanity. You learn to see refugees as people and quite often extremely vulnerable people at that. If the whole refugee debate didn't have any relevancy to me before, it certainly does now."

Another student, Grace Keyworth, who was already working in the Canberra Press Gallery as a videographer when the project began, wrote that #ReportingRefugees was an important and timely intervention.

"I have been present at countless press conferences this year where the discussion of asylum seekers and refugees was completely dehumanized. There was a lot of talk of numbers, figures and 'processing' them like they're a piece of meat, but hardly any of names, occupations or their reasons for leaving their countries," she lamented. "It shows that as a society, we haven't progressed beyond the racial discrimination towards immigrants that has plagued our country since federation."

Opening Up Journalism -- Critical Reflection via Social Media

The students were encouraged to openly reflect, through their social media activity, on their pre-conceived ideas about the refugee-asylum seeker issue and broadcast reporting conventions as they worked on their stories. They had to navigate very complex issues -- such as balancing the need to avoid re-traumatizing refugee interviewees who'd survived torture against the need for editorial transparency and independence. Many encountered significant journalistic obstacles -- from paternalism within some organizations which led (inappropriately) to one service provider refusing its refugee clients permission to speak, to nervous interviewees backing out of stories close to deadline. But in every case, these experiences delivered important learning outcomes -- about the need for sensitivity and informed consent in reporting on refugees-asylum seekers, and about the need for journalistic perseverance and resilience when confronted with problems that threaten to derail stories in which many hours work have been invested.

There were logistical hurdles to mount, too. The collaborative editorial management of the project with the ABC meant that assessment deadlines had to be interwoven with ABC production deadlines. And multiple classroom visits by the busy ABC content director needed to be scheduled across four tutorials, which were timetabled for only three hours each per week.

Once the students had filed their rough-cut stories for assessment, the difficult process of selecting the content for broadcast and web upload commenced. I shortlisted stories from each tutorial with my tutors (Phil Cullen and Ginger Gorman, both of whom are experienced ABC broadcasters) but the ABC's Jordie Kilby was responsible for selecting the final line-up of 10 stories. Meanwhile, we auditioned potential student presenters, and student executive producers attached to each tutorial began wrangling students to deliver final cut radio and web stories.

Putting #ReportingRefugees on Air

Ultimately, the students broadcast two hours of moving, human radio with a focus on personalized stories, situational reports on community programs such as a psychological service which treats traumatized child refugees, explanatory journalism that unpacked highly complex and sensitive themes, and an intelligent panel discussion, featuring the former Commonwealth Ombudsman and the UNHCR's representative in Australia, that addressed the questions crowdsourced via OurSay in a way that allowed misconceptions to be powerfully countered.

As the program aired, students, listeners and ABC staff participated in a lively Twitter discussion triggered by the stories, aggregated by the #ReportingRefugees hashtag.

Additionally, the ABC website continues to host a bundle of additional student reports produced for the project, along with a podcast of the radio special (Hour 1 & Hour 2).

I'll focus in more detail on the impact of the project on those involved, its reception by audiences, and the implications for journalism education in part two of this #ReportingRefugees series, but this quote from international student Linn Loken, sums up the value of the project and makes my own very substantial investment in time, energy and effort in its execution seem worthwhile:

"Knowing a few refugees now, this is not just a word to me anymore. When I hear the word REFUGEE mentioned, I think about the people I talked to during this project and I can see their faces."

Julie Posetti is an award-winning journalist and journalism academic who lectures in radio and television reporting at the University of Canberra, Australia. She's been a national political correspondent, a regional news editor, a TV documentary reporter and presenter on radio and television with the Australian national broadcaster, the ABC. Her academic research centers on journalism and social media, on talk radio, public broadcasting, political reporting and broadcast coverage of Muslims post-9/11. She's currently writing her PhD dissertion on 'The Twitterisation of Journalism' at the University of Wollongong. She blogs at J-Scribe and you can follow her on Twitter.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), India, and HIVOS of the Netherlands are hosting the 2011 Digital AlterNatives Video Contest as a part of the ‘Digital Natives with a Cause’ project. The contest revolves around the theme “Everyday Digital Native” and asks participants to share stories on what makes their everyday life “digital”.

In this modern world we are using using digital devices and gadgets and thinking Digital everyday. We are living the Digital life by acting digitally - always clicking, linking, tagging and Liking. The contest is your chance to tell your story “What makes your life so click-worthy?”

The competition is open to everyone - professionals, amateurs - anyone in the world can apply. There is no upper or lower limit on age. (details here)

Click on image to enlarge poster.

The contest will progress through four main rounds. In the first stage, participants will send in their written abstracts by 26th January 2012, giving details of their video proposal and what inspired their story line. The proposals will be judged by a panel of jurists where 25 ideas will be shortlisted for the next round. The list will be voted by the public and top ten favorites will be chosen. Finally, the judges will pick the two best videos among the ten.

The Top 10 videos will receive a prize of EUR 500 each and will also get a chance to be part of a film screening at CIS premises in Bangalore. The two best video makers will receive loads of prizes.

Please submit your proposal via Online Application Form by 26 January 2012.

Here is a video produced by Harry McKillop Elementary School, Melissa, Texas, to show that today's digital natives are hungry for guidance and opportunity to experiment with all the new tools available.

Written by Rezwan
· comments (0)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

I always tell clients that it is no longer enough to be beautiful when it comes to marketing online. The Internet has become more like an Oscar after-party than it is like the airport Ramada. Online, you’re never the lone beauty in the hotel lounge. Online, you’re surrounded by equal or greater beauties. What’s more, the most successful online social media barflies are aggressive in addition to gorgeous. Too many companies that have invested vast resources in social have Pretty Boy/Girl Syndrome. A symptom of this disease is an expectation that others will go out of their way to pursue you.

No matter how much money you spend on a graphic designer, a social media expert, and a community manager, you may very well not find the kind of success you want and expect from your investment in social media and social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and Pinterest.

Being beautiful, friendly, clever, generous, and charming is no longer good enough when you’re not just competing with the student body for Prom King and Queen, you’re now competing with potentially every other beautiful, friendly, clever, generous, and charming person on planet earth. The Internet has flattened the market, allowing anyone to eat your lunch, so just ringing the dinner bell after you launch your social media presence is not going to work as well as you expect.

Mind you, there are exceptions. If there are holes in the market–a vacuum–then filling that need will result in amazing success. Another exception is celebrity.  If you already have an undeniable fan-base, it will translate perfectly into success online.  Unfortunately, for the rest of us, we have neither.

In order to compete on a world stage, it is essential to aggressively recruit new members. Not just new members, but passionate, enthusiastic, members who will do what you expected Facebook, Google+, and Twitter to do for you in the first place: create firestorms of buzz and word-of-mouth influence. To become a channel of primary, secondary, and tertiary influence that result in your members sharing your content on their walls, resulting on an organic growth, ultimately snowballing into massive conversions and stellar online sales.

Do some research and you’ll find out, to your astonishment, that a majority of those viral videos with over a million views were not “upload it to YouTube and they will come.” Most of them skyrocketed as the direct result of some form of publicity campaign, be it grass roots or from an agency.

Be the catalyst of your natural social media success.  Take your fate into your own hands and get off of that bar stool and walk over and start some conversations with all the folks you want to meet.  This can include a long-tail blogger outreach campaign, it should include an A-list influencer outreach, be they on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, or wherever.

Membership in your community is a later stage of the hearts-and-minds campaign in which you need to engage.  Just collecting Likes or Follows doesn’t often result in engagement. If you spend any time on your Facebook Page Insights, which you do, you’ll understand how important performance is to the success of your social media campaign.  You need both quantity and quality of Likes.  I won’t kid you: more is better; however, if you have hundreds of thousands of Likes on your Facebook Page but have negligible engagement in your posts in the form of likes and comments, then you will not earn the sort of gravity and popularity to elbow on your members’ Facebook Wall.

If you’re able to prospect passionate followers by going out there–to where they live on their own blogs, forums, Listservs, social networks, and communities–to find them, recruit them, convert them, and win them over, then you’ll start seeing the true power of world-of-mouth marketing. Via Biznology.Chris Abraham is a partner in Socialmedia.biz and co-founder and principal of Abraham Harrison LLC, an international consulting group with specialties in online word-of-mouth/conversation marketing and online business & technology strategy advising. See his profile, contact Chris via email, Twitter, or leave a comment below.

With two passed bills heading for a mayoral veto and a newly introduced bill aiming to curb the Mayor's power, the City Council is taking a stand against the Mayor in a big way.

Today was an important day in the history of the Internet and activism. While the U.S. Congress expected to quickly pass two bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), mounting opposition online has led them to reconsider. That all came to a head today when various sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit decided to black out their content, and others such as Google put up anti-SOPA messages on their sites. The following is a Storify aggregation of all those efforts, including explainers, stories, tweets, parody videos and more.

[View the story "A Guide to the Anti-SOPA Protests" on Storify]

Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. and Circle him on Google+

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Today we’re launching an events section in each EveryBlock city.

Until now, there hasn’t been a great way to find events happening in your neighborhood. There are a bunch of events sites out there, but they suffer from three problems.

First, they focus on general-interest events — the Cubs game, the big stadium concert, the citywide festival — instead of neighborhood-scoped events. There hasn’t been a place to find the “long tail” of events.

Second, they don’t allow for geographic granularity. When you search, the smallest radius they support is 5 miles, which, from EveryBlock’s perspective, might as well be at the other end of the city.

Third, they’re siloed. Sure, you could go to your park district’s site for park district events, and to your city’s site for city-sanctioned events, and to your neighborhood association’s site for your neighborhood association’s events, but nobody collects that in one place.

Our new events section is our first step in solving these problems.

You’ll now see an events calendar on your custom EveryBlock homepage. Click that, and you’ll see upcoming events near your followed places. You can browse by date and category (clean-up, garage sale, school meeting, etc.). All of this uses the same level of geographic granularity you’ve come to know and love on EveryBlock, so that you can see events happening near a given block, neighborhood or custom location.

As with the rest of our site, the events come from a variety of sources — sites that we aggregate data from (starting with our launch partners Eventful and Time Out Chicago), plus users like you. If you’re an event organizer or otherwise know about what’s happening in your neighborhood, you can post events yourself. (Look for the "Post to EveryBlock" link at the top of each page while you're logged in.) Events also show up in your timeline and in our daily email digests, so they fit into the existing ways people use EveryBlock.

We hope this turns you on to fun neighborhood events you didn’t know about, lets you spread the word about events you’re organizing yourself and gives you more excuses to meet your neighbors and strengthen the bonds in your community.

In light of today's internet blackouts, we have received numerous requests for information about the Stop Online Piracy Act ("SOPA") and the Protect IP Act ("PIPA"), as well as the reasons for today's protest of these two bills.  In response to the demand for information, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the center at Harvard University that hosts the Citizen Media Law Project, has collected links to useful summaries, statements and commentary about SOPA and PIPA here.  We invite you to visit Berkman's site and learn more about SOPA, PIPA and today's protest.

If you are wondering why the CMLP's own page did not go dark today, we made an institutional decision that we could best serve the public by remaining an accessible resource for information on media law and threats to online speech during the protest.

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung

1. Google joins anti-SOPA campaign (AdAge)

2. Inside Jerry Yang's departure from Yahoo (All Things D)

3. AP tweaks social media rules on incorrect tweets (Poynter)

4. Social media ROI metrics remain 'chaotic' (Online Media Daily)

5. New York Post launches Kindle Fire app (FishbowlNY)

6. Fox News puts Twitter hashtags to work during GOP debate (Lost Remote)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

A version of this post first appeared on the OpenCourt blog.

A man charged with selling drugs inside the courthouse. A woman said to have shoplifted $5 worth of barbeque chicken wings. A man charged with multiple counts of raping a child with force. A longtime Drug Court participant booted from the program for taking a non-narcotic pill (still against the rules). Everyone brought back to court owing fees or victim restitution in previously dismissed cases. A man on psychotropic medication charged with shoplifting a Stop and Shop cart full of meat and pulling a knife when confronted in the parking lot. A naked hiker in the Blue Hills whose defense to lewd behavior is being raised as a naturist. OUIs. Restraining order hearings. A wife sectioning her husband for alcoholism.

OpenCourt has been streaming public court hearings from the First Session courtroom in the Quincy District Court in Massachusetts since May of 2011. We've received feedback about how our viewers use and value the footage, and we realize it would be useful to show more of the court's daily business -- not just the cross-section that comes through the First Session.

While holding to our goal to carve a plausible model for other courthouses, we've often asked ourselves how we and other journalists around the country could do a better job shedding light on a bigger portion of the iceberg's tip, and not necessarily using as much expensive technology.

In other words, just how much business does all of Quincy District Court do in a single day? How can we more fully capture the breadth of cases heard, day in and day out?

Cooperative Coverage

To help answer these questions, last month we hosted a cooperative coverage event at the court, an open invitation to citizen and traditional journalists alike to help us gather notes about everything that transpires in the building's six public courtrooms.

Our combined notes, which you can read here on our blog -- gathered between myself, our producer Val Wang, two Patriot Ledger reporters, two Harvard Berkman interns, one State House News reporter, and three citizen journalists -- are inevitably incomplete. But we hope this coming together shows more fully the wide array of hearings before the court, the sheer volume of cases, and the fact that this is all happening every day, outside of normal public view.

We realized it's easier than you might think for loosely affiliated citizens to collaborate on a one-off project (read: Twitter + Google Docs).

There were unsurprisingly a wide variety of cases. Some rough tallies: Assault & Battery (15, of which 3 were labeled as domestic violence), disorderly conduct (4), trespassing (3), resisting arrest (1), uninsured and/or unlicensed motor vehicle operation (5), speeding (3), shoplifting (5), larceny over $250 (1), receiving stolen property (2), distribution of an illegal substance (3), section 35 (1), sealed record request (3), interpreter needed (1).

This day was exceptional not by any standard of caseload or substance, only that more of us were there to see it and relay stories. For me and Val, the longer we're in court streaming, the clearer it is that we're sitting on a relatively unchecked sociological goldmine.

Opening Court Data

These notes from last month's experiment are, at the least, a compelling glance at the river of data flowing through our local courts every single day.

At best they offer a new angle on approaching larger questions: How do we get to a place where public court data is more accessible? Why aren't the stats being tracked more extensively and automatically in the name of scientifically diagnosing societal ills?

The Boston Globe recently published an extensive three-part series on Massachusetts drunken driving prosecutions, which undoubtedly required massive reporting energy. While that energy will always be required for strong narrative journalism, shouldn't reporters and the public at large alike have easier access to court proceedings to begin with? Wouldn't the state be better off if tracking the operation of its courts didn't require the Herculean effort of a crack, paid investigative team?

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this possible. Our aim at this point, as always, is to provide a window into the everyday landscape of our legal system. Beyond that, we hope efforts like this lead to smarter methods to inform and awaken the public -- to be a better radar for a community's prevalent crimes.

What do you think? What do you see? What should we do differently if we host another event like this?

For many self-published authors, a traditional publisher is an elusive dream. It means a team of professionals taking over marketing, advertising, publicity and the mechanics of publishing one's own book on paper and electronically. It means already forged relationships with booksellers, critics and other writers -- and it means more time to write, rather than haggling over the costs of a book cover design or editing.

While both the self-published fantasy writer Amanda Hocking and CIA thriller author John Locke show that independent authors can succeed in attracting big publishers and contracts, it seems, for now, that they are the exception, not the rule.

using the Kindle Store as a talent pool

The rise of e-books and self publishing has certainly enlarged the talent pool for publishers and made it easier to find authors, but that doesn't mean publishers are all taking advantage of the emerging talent.

Debra Dixon, president of Bell Bridge Books, a small press based in Memphis that publishes young adult, science fiction and fantasy titles, said, "I know that we have seen agents trolling Kindle lists ... But our authors tend to come to us based on reputation."

"I know a lot of folks in the industry, and I just don't hear anybody saying, 'I got the greatest author this week -- got her on Kindle,'" Dixon said.

Trina MacDonald, a senior acquisitions editor for Pearson Education, said she discovers authors by finding experts in the field, doing research, and hearing from people in the community. "We ask what types of books they would like to see and who would write them," she said. "And then we would make direct contact."

MacDonald said she has heard of publishers contacting writers on Kindle and isn't against the idea.

"I have not approached any authors, but I think it would depend on the book and the author," MacDonald said. "But if they are already self-published you can see what kind of writing they're capable of."

The Truth About Amanda Hocking

Amanda Hocking, a 27-year-old independent author who sold more than a million copies of her books, signed a reported $2 million-plus, four-book deal with St. Martin's Press earlier this year, making her an indie success story. The news of her book deal flooded the Internet, sparking reports that publishers are looking for the next Hocking.

But Hocking wasn't a passive participant in the process. She sent numerous queries, manuscripts and book proposals to traditional publishers and agents, only to be turned down repeatedly. Hocking was also a prolific author with nine self-published titles to her name and her popular Trylle Trilogy, had already been optioned for a motion picture. According to her blog, she even had an editor, cover artist and acted on feedback from publishers and agents. By the time she was offered a contract by St. Martin's she had negotiated foreign language rights in Hungary and sold 1 million copies of her books.

She said she chose to go with a traditional publisher because, "I want to be a writer. I do not want to spend 40 hours a week handling emails, formatting covers, finding editors, etc. Right now, being me is a full-time corporation."

The new independent author has to be able to market and advertise a book in nontraditional ways on a minuscule budget. That usually means blogs, social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and a lot of phone calls and email. That publicity, often called "discoverability" or a "platform," is what sells books and propels them up the e-book bestseller lists. And for most self-published e-book authors, that means making their downloads available at the Amazon Kindle store.

Clearing the Way

Erica Sadun, an author who previously wrote technical manuals such as "The iOS 5 Developer's Cookbook," decided to work on an independent e-book to stay ahead of the technological curve.

"My friend Steve [Sande] and I were sick to pieces of the 101 days of production before books can get out," she said from her Denver home. So she and Sande decided to pen a how-to for the iPhone 4S's virtual assistant Siri, called "Talking to Siri" and had it out within two weeks of the iPhone 4S launch.

After selling well for six days, it was picked up by a publisher -- as it turns out, Sadun's own publisher Pearson wanted it for its Que imprint. "It isn't the normal story," Sadun said.

But Sadun's story isn't uncommon either. Several successful authors have started independently publishing for higher royalties or using it to test out new genres. One successful author who advocates and guides new Kindle authors into self-publishing e-books, J.A. Konrath, has had six books published by Hyperion since 2004.

But lacking a following or any exposure, unknown independent authors still have to garner interest however possible.

The Hybrid Author

Dixon said she met self-published urban fantasy author John Hartness in the usual fashion, at a science fiction and fantasy convention.

"When I began talking to publishers and eventually signed with Bell Bridge Books, they were as attracted to my stories as they were that I was media-savvy and self-promotions savvy," Hartness said. "But I don't know of any publisher who would be willing to put out bad stories because their authors are a whiz at promotion."

Dixon signed Hartness in September, about two years after he uploaded his first independent e-book to the Kindle Store.

"We saw what he had done and his platform, which made it more attractive because when you relaunch an author it's a big commitment," Dixon said.

Traditional publishers do shoulder the price of editing, promotion and publicity, and they usually recoup those costs with higher asking prices than 99 cents or $2.99. With self-published authors, the costs for publishers are the same as for a new author. "We treat (the book) as if it has never been published," Dixon said. "One of the strong reasons writers come to publishers is to elevate their book."

While Hartness loves working with his publisher and the process, he continues to self-publish his own work. "I think you are going to see many more hybrid authors," he said.

Barbara E. Hernandez is a native Californian who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has more than a decade of experience as a professional journalist and college writing instructor. She also writes for Press:Here, NBC Bay Area's technology blog.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Councilman Stephen Levin looks to help struggling street vendors who face "outrageous" fines for small infractions.

By Brian McDermott: At first, Brittany Cantarella had no idea the man she accidentally swiped with her Chevrolet was named Lord Jesus Christ. But within two days, the minor traffic incident had gone viral. Reporters snatched the then 20-year-old's Facebook profile picture and left messages on her grandmother's answering machine. "It's the girl that hit Jesus!" a man in Stop & Shop yelled. "I wanted to hide, I wanted to run, I wanted to go far away," Cantarella said. Two months later, she was willing to talk to me about the accident at a coffee shop in western Massachusetts. She was resolute, though, that I not take her picture or shoot video. That's because Cantarella's experience with viral fame made her wary of having her image wedded to a traffic accident that would never go away online. This small anecdote is part of a new media conundrum dogging the relationship between visual journalists and their subjects: most people happily publish their own picture online, but a growing number of them are becoming wary of having their image captured by visual journalists. With facial recognition software becoming commercially available in the past few years, new technologies could further reshuffle the relationship between a subject and a visual journalist. Ed Kashi is a renowned photojournalist who has spent the past 30 years shooting for National Geographic, the VII Photo Agency and dozens of other outlets. And, he told me in an email interview, he's noticed individuals and organizations becoming more reluctant to allow visual access. "There is more wariness and a desire to have more control over access and what you are allowed to show," he said. "In some cases and with certain subjects, this new paradigm presents a dilemma and can halt worthy work."

Two weeks after he signaled his intention to focus on education, Gov. Andrew Cuomo today filled in some of the details and inserted himself squarely in the dispute over teacher evaluation.

In his budget address Cuomo confirmed that, as announced previously, the state would up its aid to districts by 4.1 percent or $805 million next year for a total of about $20 billion.

Unlike last budget year — when the governor cut spending across the board regardless of a district’s needs — the increase would be weighted toward higher needs areas. These parts of the state will receive 76 percent of the hike and 69 percent of all school aid, according to Cuomo’s Budget Briefing Book.This means New York City stands to gets almost $6.4 billion next year, an increase of 2.6 percent over the approximately $6.2 billion it is getting this year.

Districts also would be able to compete for some $200 million in special state grants, under a New York version of the federal Race to the Top program.

The Road to the Money

But Cuomo put a big condition on all the additional money. To get it, districts will have to come up with a new evaluation system for teachers.

Details after the jump.

Not a single district has yet implemented a new evaluation system as required under the state’s Race to the Top grant from the federal government, Cuomo said. The dispute has jeopardized up to $1 billion in federal funding for New York schools.

Cuomo said the reason to change the way the state grades its teachers goes beyond financial considerations. “If we’re serious about education, we have no choice. This is the way to improve education,” he said.

Cuomo outlined a three-step plan to make a new evaluation system a reality.  First, he said, New York State United Teachers and the state Education Department must end the legal wrangling over evaluations and agree to a new system incorporating observations, students achievement (test scores) and more. (The union successfully sued the state to halt such a plan last summer.)

If they can’t do it, Cuomo will propose a system.

The districts then will have until September to implement the state’s evaluation plan. Any that fail to do that will not qualify for the state’s competitive grants.

And finally — and this is huge — any districts that one year from today have not implemented a system will lose their chunk of the 4 percent increase in state education aid. This puts teacher evaluations smack in the middle of the state’s budget process.

Bloomberg’s Bluster

In pushing for his change, Cuomo picked up the mantle of the so-called reform movement that, he said, has shifted the country to a greater focus on students and their achievement (and, critics say, to an excessive reliance on test scores). He invoked both President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush.  And he styled himself as a champion of kids. “This was not supposed to be about the adults. It was supposed to be about the children,” he said.

For all that, though, he did not single out teachers for criticism. In fact, he said, they “deserve the best evaluation system and help when they need it” as well as rewards and bonuses.

While that puts him at odds with the teachers union, it represents a very different tone from that used by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his State of the City speech last week. Bloomberg then blamed teachers for the impasse over evaluations. In his comments on Cuomo’s speech today, he kept up that refrain.

“The governor has made it clear that he is determined to be a champion for our students – and that he will not allow the teachers union to drag its feet any longer on implementing new teacher evaluation systems across the state. I hope the [United Federation of Teachers] will not recklessly jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars for our schools by insisting on endless obstacles to removing ineffective teachers from our classrooms,” Bloomberg said in a statement. He seemed not to notice that Cuomo had said he would not allow “adults” and the “bureaucracy” — not just the union — to drag their feet.

Michael Mulgrew, the president of the city’s teachers union, though clearly thinks he has spotted a bit of sunlight between Bloomberg and Cuomo. Earlier this week, Mulgrew told the Times that he has ““no disagreement with the governor over the evaluations,” and welcomes his involvement. As for Bloomberg, though, Mulgrew accused him of “political grandstanding.”

Mulgrew even has tried to enlist Cuomo as a kind of ally, saying, according to the Daily News, that the governor’s proposal provides “all the more reason why Mayor Bloomberg and the Department of Education should come back to the negotiations they walked out on and work to resolve the remaining issues.”

Not surprisingly, in his speech Cuomo did address Bloomberg’s plan for the city to remove up to half the teachers from struggling schools — whether the union likes it or not and even if it costs the city millions of dollars. The state education department, which is independent of the governor , gets to rule on that, not Cuomo.

For his part the state education commissioner, John King, struck a conciliatory note with the union today saying in his statement that  the department and the union should use the next “30 days to have a healthy public debate on evaluations.” The department, he said, is ready to sit down and start talking.”

The city — justifiably or not — broke off its negotiations with the city teachers union on Dec. 30. At least officially, those discussion have not resumed.

Bill Mahoney, New York Public Interest Research Group’s numbers guru has been churning through the most recent fundraising filings and boy has he come up with some interesting facts.

“Governor Cuomo has raised nearly twice as much in his first full year in office as former Governor Spitzer did,” Mahoney writes. (Bill’s cash raising comparison is after the jump.)

Not only did Cuomo raise gigantic but the Committee to Save New York, the group of business and real estate interests formed to back Cuomo’s policies has set records with their fundraising.

“New lobby filings indicate that the Committee to Save New York spent $2,130,792 in November and December.  This brings their annual total up to $11,898,400, the fifth highest total in modern New York history,” writes Mahoney

Here is Mahoney’s comparison between Cuomo and Spitzer:

And look at the numbers:

Contributions:

$11,672,277.87 (Cuomo)

$6,654,015.73 (Spitzer)

Expenditures

$2,200,818.51 (Cuomo)

$9,306,019.90 (Spitzer)

$ In Bank, end of year

$2,914,522.06 (Spitzer)

$14,382,577.13 (Cuomo)

The New York State Water Rangers, a group of environmental organizations that oppose hydraulic fracturing, are encouraged that Gov. Andrew Cuomo did not include revenue from hydrofracking in his budget, or add money for increased staff to process fracking permits. Here is their statement:

“Governor Cuomo has clearly taken his foot off the gas pedal and appears to be taking to heart the state’s obligation to conduct a thorough environmental review before deciding whether to proceed with industrial gas development by means of fracking in New York. By not including industry-exaggerated fracking revenue or ramping up agency staff to process drilling permits, the Governor’s budget proposal signals that he’s not rushing to judgment and is giving the Department of Environmental Conservation the time necessary to review and respond to the more than 40,000 comments the agency has received on the state’s fracking proposals.

The New York Water Rangers are encouraged by the executive budget proposal and Governor Cuomo’s recent statements on fracking, which demonstrate he’s adopted a more responsible approach to considering the issue.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn have major praise for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2012-2013 fiscal year budget. “This is the strongest state budget that New York City has seen in a long time. With this new budget, Governor Cuomo is establishing a stronger financial basis for a more vibrant and healthy New York,” Quinn said in a statement.

“Governor Cuomo put forward a budget that demonstrates a bold commitment to tackle some of the toughest challenges facing our great state. He has my strong support,” said Bloomberg in a statement.

Bloomberg hasn’t had the smoothest relationship with Cuomo so far but the Mayor is especially pleased with Cuomo’s plans for mandate relief and pension reform.

“The Governor’s push for mandate relief and pension reform could save the City billions in the long term,” Bloomberg’s statement continues. “New York City spends more than $8 billion annually – more than 12 percent of our budget – on pension costs, more than we spend on the operating budgets for the Police, Fire and Sanitation Departments combined. Without a new pension tier, which will not diminish the retirement benefits of a single current employee, taxpayers will continue to spend more and more on pension costs, leaving less and less for public education, public safety, job creation, affordable housing and other critical services.

Here are Quinn’s and Bloomberg’s full statements:

Statement by Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn

“This is the strongest state budget that New York City has seen in a long time. With this new budget, Governor Cuomo is establishing a stronger financial basis for a more vibrant and healthy New York. By appropriately reducing spending, the Governor is reforming the way state government allocates taxpayer dollars. I strongly commend Governor Cuomo for this budget. I am confident that working with the Governor and the State Legislature, we can ensure New York’s prosperous future.”

STATEMENT OF MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG ON GOVERNOR CUOMO’S BUDGET ADDRESS

“Governor Cuomo put forward a budget that demonstrates a bold commitment to tackle some of the toughest challenges facing our great state. He has my strong support.

“The Governor’s push for mandate relief and pension reform could save the City billions in the long term. New York City spends more than $8 billion annually – more than 12 percent of our budget – on pension costs, more than we spend on the operating budgets for the Police, Fire and Sanitation Departments combined. Without a new pension tier, which will not diminish the retirement benefits of a single current employee, taxpayers will continue to spend more and more on pension costs, leaving less and less for public education, public safety, job creation, affordable housing and other critical services. Further, the Governor’s budget will reduce onerous local Medicaid costs by limiting – and then eliminating – the rate of growth in the City’s Medicaid bills in the years to come.

“Governor Cuomo also has proposed two important justice system reforms we have been seeking: a sweeping, progressive reform of our juvenile justice system and the expansion of DNA collection. Our administrations have worked closely together to forge an agreement that will transfer responsibility for all but the most seriously delinquent youth from State to City care, enabling more young people to stay closer to their families and transition into productive lives in their communities. And expanded DNA use can help solve more crimes and prevent wrongful convictions.

“Most urgently, the Governor has made it clear that he is determined to be a champion for our students – and that he will not allow the teachers’ union to drag its feet any longer on implementing new teacher evaluation systems across the state. I hope the UFT will not recklessly jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars for our schools by insisting on endless obstacles to removing ineffective teachers from our classrooms. The Governor has rightly said he will not tolerate this and will help deliver rigorous teacher evaluations for our State and City.

“The Governor’s priorities are the right priorities for the State and I will be working with him to move his agenda forward. We will be reviewing the details of the budget over the coming days and I look forward to testifying before the Legislature next week.”

Looking to make their brand “a little more memorable,” the News Licensing Group is now NewsRight – and is billing itself as an “easy rights clearinghouse for the best news reporting and original journalism on the Web.”

Earlier this month, the group announced that 29 major news and information companies have signed on as initial investors in the startup, a new independent digital-rights and content licensing venture led by former ABC News President David Westin.

(The initial investors in NewsRight are: Advance Publications, The Associated Press, Axel Springer Group, A.H.Belo Management Services, Belo Management Services, Business Wire, Community Newspaper Holdings, El Dia, Galveston Newspapers, Gatehouse Media, The Gazette Company, Hearst Newspapers, Journal Communications, Landmark Media Enterprises, The McClatchy Company, Media General, MediaNews Group, Morris Communications, Morris Multimedia, NPG Newspapers, The New York Times Company, Ogden Newspapers, Pioneer Newspapers, Schurz Communications, The E.W. Scripps Company, Stephens Media, Swift Communications, Times Publishing Co. and The Washington Post Company.)

For those skeptics who see NewsRight as some simple outgrowth of the Associated Press’ highly criticized News Registry project – or as some new form of Righthaven – Westin says that view largely underestimates the months of effort and planning to bring NewsRight to investors and to customers. And, he says, its underestimates their overall philosophy.

“The right solution is the business solution,” said Westin by phone last week. “We plan to go to a wide range of people and help them with their businesses. … We’ll start out slow. We’re going to do one deal at a time. And we’ll need to persuade them.”

Westin said NewsRight intends to target everyone from subscription aggregators, such as libraries and large corporations and governments, to the kinds of large and small independent aggregators on the Web causing concern for traditional news outlets.

In the short term, NewsRight is working to sign up subscription aggregators by providing them not only “clean content” with rights clearance, but also detailed analytics about how such content is being consumed. (That looks to be the value added part that TechDirt wondered about last week.)

Westin said that NewsRight will later approach general online aggregators, including Google, about content and clearance. “We’ll be going to Google when the time is right,” said Westin. “It’s important when we go into the market that we’re not asking for a wealth transfer.” Instead, Westin said, the arrangement has to be good for both sides.

Listening to Westin, I sensed he and NewsRight are realistic about the culture shift they will have to accomplish. The heavy-handedness of a Righthaven approach to the news industry’s woes is obviously not viable.

But will the aggregators and users of news and information be as willing as many music consumers are to pay for access? And what will NewsRight claim needs licensing that arguably might fall within the gray areas of fair use?

All questions still to be answered. But their progress and future announcements merit watching.

Victoria Smith Ekstrand is an associate professor at Bowling Green State University, where she teaches media law, public relations, and graduate courses in legal theory and pedagogy. She also worked for The Associated Press for nine years, and before that worked for the Arbitron Company and for radio stations in upstate New York, New York City, and Long Island.

(Image of teletype machine courtesy of Flickr user Rochelle, just rochelle licensed under a CC BY 2.0 license.)

Here is the general budget overview sent out by the office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo is still delivering his remarks and you can watch them here.

Highlights of the plan include:

· Closing the current budget gap with no new taxes, fees or gimmicks, and including zero growth in State agency spending;
· Eliminating automatic spending inflators and implementing reforms throughout the budget to ensure that spending increases for service providers reflect performance and actual cost;
· Allocating $1.3 billion in State investment designed to spur a total of $25 billion from other sources to launch and accelerate major infrastructure projects and create thousands of jobs;
· Creating a plan for the State to take over 100% of the costs of Medicaid growth that will be phased in over three years, saving local governments $1.2 billion over the next five years;
· Creating a pension reform plan that will save State taxpayers and local governments outside New York City $83 billion, and will save New York City $30 billion over the next 30 years; and
· Increasing school aid by $805 million, including $250 million linked to improved academic performance and management efficiency, and implementation of an enhanced teacher evaluation process.

Due to the structural reforms enacted in last year’s budget as well as the reforms proposed in this budget, the budget gap in 2013-14 is projected at $715 million. That is the lowest “first out-year” budget gap in two decades. The Executive Budget recommendations cut the projected four-year deficit by more than half, from $16.4 billion to $7.4 billion.

The Executive Budget includes:

· All Funds spending of $132.5 billion in the fiscal year that begins April 1, 2012, a decrease of $225 million from 2011-12. The back-to-back decline in All Funds spending represents the first time in decades that this has occurred.
· State Operating Funds spending of $88.7 billion, an increase of $1.7 billion, or 1.9 percent. State Operating Funds exclude federal funds and long-term capital spending.

Financial Plan

The financial plan outlined by the Governor is based on the principles of fiscal discipline and reality-based budgeting that do not include using new taxes, fees, or one-shot gimmicks. State agency operations growth is held flat, while local assistance programs grow by 2.6%.

Maintain fiscal discipline: The $3.5 billion budget gap identified in December is closed through $2 billion in spending reductions in the Executive Budget proposed today, and $1.5 billion in revenues from the middle-class tax reforms enacted last year that made the tax code more fair and equitable. Even with 4% increases in education and Medicaid spending, and a 2.6% increase in Aid to Localities, there will be a net reduction in All Funds spending. Zero growth in State agency spending is achieved by redesigning State agency operations to reduce duplication, redundancy and waste.

Eliminate and reform automatic growth inflators: Last year, the Governor brought reality back to the definition of “deficit” in Albany by eliminating certain automatic inflators and pegging increases in education and Medicaid spending to rational and affordable measures of growth. These actions saved New York billions of dollars and helped to stabilize the State’s finances. The 2012-13 financial plan works to further control automatic cost growth and tie growth to rational measures. For 2012-13, inflators like cost of living adjustments will be kept flat and reforms will be introduced to ensure that spending increases in future years reflect performance and actual cost.

Economic Development

The 2012-13 Executive Budget funds a comprehensive and coordinated blueprint for economic development. The plan is designed to create jobs in New York State through public-private partnerships that leverage State resources to generate billions of dollars in economic growth, improve the State’s infrastructure and support regionally-based economic strategies.

Leverage State assets to spur billions in private sector investment and create thousands of private sector jobs: The Executive Budget lays the groundwork for an innovative $25 billion economic development agenda, funded largely by leveraging billions in private sector investment rather than taxpayer dollars. The New York Works Fund and Task Force will coordinate $1.3 billion in State funding to spur up to $25 billion in investment from other sources, including private companies, the federal government, and authorities, to allow major projects to move forward that will create jobs and improve the State’s infrastructure. To accelerate select infrastructure projects with maximum economic impact, the Governor’s plan will use provisions from the Design Build legislation, which was passed in the 2011 December extraordinary session, that will allow projects to begin now and reduce costs by hundreds of millions of dollars.

A Second Round of Regional Economic Development Awards: The budget includes a new round of $200 million in competitive resources for the Governor’s Regional Economic Development Councils. Of this total amount, $130 million is capital funding included in the New York Works program and $70 million comes from Excelsior Tax Credits. The Councils have transformed the State’s economic development approach from a top-down model to a bottom-up, community-based one. The second round of awards will allow each region to continue shaping its own economic destiny.

Reimagining Government

The Executive Budget builds on Governor Cuomo’s work to reinvent state government to perform more efficiently and better protect taxpayer money. The Executive Budget provides additional funding for the work of the Regional Economic Development Councils, and advances SAGE commission proposals to reverse decades of bureaucratic growth and refocus agencies’ operations in ways that benefit service recipients and taxpayers alike. The Governor is also proposing sweeping structural reforms to relieve local governments of State mandates that drive up local costs. These reforms, which address the largest cost-drivers for local governments, will help municipal leaders meet the pressures of the prolonged economic downturn, and will help local governments meet the goals of the property tax cap.

Healthcare Redesign: The Executive Budget calls for continued reforms to make the State’s health system perform better and cost less. By enacting the Health Exchange, 1 million uninsured New Yorkers will gain coverage. It will reduce costs to individuals who purchase coverage directly by 66% and small businesses by 22%, all financed by the federal government at no cost to New York.

Reduce burden on counties by taking over Medicaid growth costs: Medicaid growth is a major cost driver for counties. In 2006, the State capped the amount of Medicaid cost growth that counties have to pay. Currently, the cap is 3% of growth; all growth over 3% is paid by the State. To provide significant fiscal relief to counties and to New York City, the State will phase in a 100% takeover of the costs of Medicaid growth. In the 2013 fiscal year, the county cap will fall to 2% of Medicaid growth; in county fiscal year 2014, the county share will be reduced to 1%. Starting in county fiscal year 2015, the State will pay 100% of the costs of Medicaid growth. The takeover by the State of a greater share of local Medicaid expenses will save counties and New York City $1.2 billion over the next five years.

Enact pension reform: Next to Medicaid, pension costs are the most significant burden on local governments. The Governor called for a new tier in the State pension system that will save the State and local governments outside of New York City $83 billion and New York City $30 billion over the next 30 years. The new pension plan would have progressive contribution rates between 4% and 6% with shared risk/reward for employees and employers to account for market volatility. It includes a voluntary option for Defined Contribution following the TIAA-CREF model. Employees taking this Defined Contribution will vest in this system after one year. This option will be portable. No current employees will be affected by the Governor’s pension reform plan.

Aid to Local Governments: In addition to these reforms, the Executive Budget provides $715 million to local governments in unrestricted operating aid, and an additional $79 million in grants to promote greater efficiency. The budget also reforms the Early Intervention program to reduce counties’ administrative burdens and cut their costs by $99 million over five years, and reforms the Preschool special education program to reduce costs for counties outside of New York City by $150 million over five years. The Executive Budget does not include any cuts to Early Intervention or Preschool special education services.

Reforming the State’s Education System

The Executive Budget includes major reforms to the State’s public education system that are aimed at bolstering student achievement and improving efficiency for the taxpayer.

Increase in School Aid: The budget includes a total increase of $805 million in School Aid, including $250 million for performance grants linked to improved academic performance and management efficiency. High need school districts will receive 76 percent of the 2012-13 allocated increase and 69 percent of total school aid. The additional aid is linked to implementation of an enhanced teacher evaluation process.

Teacher Evaluation System: The Governor announced that the State Education Department and school employee unions will have 30 days to agree on a new effective teacher evaluation system or the Governor will propose an evaluation system in the 30 day budget amendments. Schools will be given one year to implement the system or risk forfeiting an increase in education aid in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school budgets.

Program Overview

Environment and Energy: This year’s Executive Budget maintains services at current levels for parks, environment and agricultural programs, and makes capital investments to strengthen infrastructure and improve energy management. The Executive Budget continues to support critical programs, including the Environmental Protection Fund, which will be maintained at $134 million, the same level as in 2011-12. As part of the New York Works program to accelerate capital infrastructure projects statewide, the Budget includes $102 million in new funding for DEC to advance flood control, coastal erosion and critical dam safety projects, and $94 million for the large backlog of capital rehabilitation and improvement needs in 48 State parks and historic sites as well as the ski facilities operated by the Olympic Regional Development Authority.

Health Care: The Executive Budget reflects the continuation of the Medicaid spending cap enacted in 2011-12 and recommends a 4% funding increase consistent with its provisions. To achieve savings needed to address the State’s budget gap, the Budget recommends $19.2 million in reductions to public health and aging programs, including $3.5 million in savings from administrative efficiencies.

Higher Education: Consistent with the provisions in the NYSUNY 2020 Challenge Grant Program, the Executive Budget maintains General Fund operating support for SUNY and CUNY colleges at prior-year levels. The Executive Budget also accommodates authorized 2012-13 tuition increases by providing $113.2 million in additional spending authority for SUNY and $66.6 million for CUNY. The Executive Budget maintains base operating aid funding for community colleges at 2011-12 levels of $2,122 per full-time equivalent student.

Human Services: The Executive Budget provides funding for core supportive services for needy populations, limits spending growth to address the State’s fiscal challenges, and implements measures to improve program performance. In child care, the Executive Budget increases General Fund support for child care subsidies by $93 million to offset a reduction in funding through the Federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.

Mental Hygiene: The Executive Budget supports significant and fundamental reforms that will strengthen the oversight of care provided to individuals in institutions and community residences. It also makes investments to improve the accountability of mental hygiene agencies, and reforms the payment process for not-for-profit providers. These proposals result in mental hygiene system funding of $8.2 billion in 2012-13, an annual spending increase of $85 million, or 1.0 percent.

Public Safety: The Executive Budget advances key initiatives to enhance public safety, including expanding the DNA database to include all crimes and improving emergency response and preparedness, while supporting recovery from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee and continuing to lower the cost of ongoing operations. The budget includes $4.6 billion to protect New York’s residents.

Revenue Actions and Tax Reform: This budget includes no new or increased taxes or fees. The Executive Budget proposes tax enforcement and loophole closing actions to ensure that all individuals pay their fair share of tax liabilities. The budget includes $1.5 billion in net revenues in 2012-13, reflecting fair tax reform enacted in December that implemented a new tax bracket for higher income earners, cut taxes for middle class New Yorkers to the lowest level in 58 years, and increased the overall fairness of the tax system.

Transportation: The Executive Budget makes strategic and accelerated investments in the State’s highway and bridge infrastructure including a new $1.16 billion in New York Works State and federal capital funds that will create jobs and improve the transportation system to support business and economic expansion. The New York Works program will accelerate capital investment, building upon core transportation funding, to provide a total DOT capital program of nearly $4.5 billion in 2012-13, including highways, bridges, rail, aviation, non-MTA transit, and DOT facilities. Funding for local highway and bridge projects under the Consolidated Highway Improvement Program is maintained at $402.8 million. The MTA’s capital program will receive $770 million in new State support over a multi-year period to help fund the MTA’s $22.2 billion 2010-14 program.

The Alliance for Quality Education issued this statement on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed budget:

School Aid and Competitive Grants
“We commend Governor Cuomo for restoring $805 million in school aid; these funds will help students throughout the state.  The exact distribution of these funds and how much is prioritized to high need and average need school districts will take a few days to evaluate. We are greatly concerned that almost one-third of these funds could be distributed based on competition between school districts which has the potential to create a system of educational winners and losers among our students.  It is important to note that last year the state moved backwards on its commitment to quality education by enacting huge classroom cuts that resulted in larger class sizes and narrowing of the curriculum.  Students need the budget to focus on restoring these classroom cuts for all, not only for those whose schools win at a competition.”

Cost Savings through Centralizing School Bus Purchasing
“Governor Cuomo has proposed a new cost savings initiative that would centralize the purchasing of school buses through a single statewide contract. This is the type of cost saving initiative from the state we need to see more of and we commend Governor Cuomo for providing the leadership to advance this type of common sense cost savings solution.”

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung.

1. If Twitter is anti-SOPA, should it blackout like Wikipedia? (gov20.govfresh)

2. Phone hacking possible at Daily Mirror during Piers Morgan's tenure (Huffington Post)

3. Beta testing part of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's web makeover (Poynter)

4. Will original, web-only shows win over TV viewers? (ReadWriteWeb)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

In December, Public Laboratory members made themselves a "public lavatory." Six members of the online DIY science community gathered in the well-appointed, but small bathroom of staff member Liz Barry with the lights off -- for citizen science.

Two staff members (Leif Percifield and Jeff Warren) stood in the bathtub lofting a laptop so the webcam pointed downward to capture the scene. Another (Chris Eichler) perched precariously on the sink with a camera, snapping photos of the path of light on the wall cast by the newest research tool -- a thermal flashlight. The thermal flashlight, still tethered to a computer held in Liz's lap and piloted by staff member Kyle McDonald, consisted of a non-contact infrared thermometer that reads the surface temperature of objects it's pointed at, an arduino (an open-source programmable electronics platform), one super-bright three-color LED (light-emitting diode), and a baffle to direct the beam -- a hastily constructed plastic cup covered with black tape and stuffed with thin toilet paper to defuse the light.

The light cast by the flashlight shifted from red to yellow and finally to a greenish blue as it passed over one particular tile of the wall -- I had heated this tile with a hair dryer. "This is how citizen science is done," I thought, as we all cheered to see the flashlight successfully sense the change in temperature, which the arduino computed, and output as a change in the flashlight's color. We had created a controlled environment (a dark bathroom in the middle of the day), a test situation (the heated tile), and gathered a bunch of participants and recording materials to attest to the event -- painting the wall with colors of light which told us about its temperature. We've come to call this "thermal painting."

what can it be used for?

The effect was captured by long-exposure photos and Glow Doodle, a free piece of software produced by MIT's Lifelong Kindergarten group. Glow Doodle was invented for people to have fun with light painting. With this combination of thermal flashlight and Glow Doodle and video or long-exposure films, Public Lab is aiming to bring low-cost thermal imaging from a bathroom to homes and communities everywhere. For instance, we're investigating whether such a flashlight can be used to spot sources of heat leakage in homes, so homeowners can take steps to improve their energy efficiency with insulation. This spring, Public Lab is working with students in Harlem to see if the flashlight can be used to document the failure of landlords to adequately heat apartments.

Like all research and development, this successful prototype was built upon the long-term work of many researchers -- both in the Public Laboratory community and elsewhere. In particular, the concept of the thermal flashlight was developed by Jeff and Kyuha Shim, a RISD Digital+Media student, in a research group Jeff and I co-directed while Public Lab was forming in 2010.

Development lagged as we focused on other research, but it was picked up and earnestly prototyped by Kyuha this fall. Kyuha, frustrated by problems programming the arduino, encouraged me to hold a workshop in my RISD class in the fall of 2011. Students in the fall class, Art:Lab, particularly Alicia Dolabaille, cracked some of those basic coding problems and published their research notes on the Public Laboratory website.

Researchers participating in the "public lavatory" workshop worked from these findings to build the successful prototype. Development of this prototype is not only proof of concept for radically low-cost thermal Imaging (the approximate cost of this prototype was $60), it is proof of concept of Public Lab's open-source collaborative approach to research and development.

promoting participatory research

Discovery and invention are often narrated as the result of a flash of genius by one person (normally a man). But the history of science shows that discovery and invention are far more complex collaborative and iterative processes than that. Public lab, building on open-source software concepts, is seeking, like other open-source hardware initiatives, to build an open-source research and development framework that supports and encourages collective, public and participatory research and development. Our thermal imaging research suggests our open-source hardware development process has legs.

Since the "public lavatory," Public Laboratory has hosted two further development sessions with remarkable success. The second session produced four more working prototypes. This image below, produced by Jeff, shows the heat of a coffee cup on his mom's table.

Another research direction is a "fishing bob" for identifying unseen inflows into urban waterbodies. The prototype for this type of thermal imager is a thermistor hot-glued into the bottom of a take-out soup container that can be dragged through the water on a fishing pole. We're currently in the process of writing up and sharing online, detailed, freely available guides and supply lists that anyone can use to build their own thermal camera.

If you're interested in making your own thermal flashlight and participating in Public Laboratory, see the thermal imaging homepage on the Public Lab site, become a public lab member, or email team@publiclaboratory.org.

Public Laboratory is excited to see what questions people can investigate using the thermal flashlight and how it might be adapted to different research directions. The thermal flashlight approach to thermal imaging can be used to create data rich-images that can be utilized as maps. These maps are easily readable and interpreted by users.

what's in store

We're experimenting with video, still images and software, like Glow Doodle, to figure out which data-recording approach is useful for which situation. Furthermore, the flashlight can be adapted to visualize both wide and small temperature ranges. When building the tool, you can assign which colors appear over which temperature range. You can examine temperature changes by a few degrees, or many, depending on the calibration of the range of light colors to temperatures.

One of the exciting aspects of Public Laboratory tools is that to use them, you have to build them. This means that users understand how the tools are put together, are able to adapt and adjust them to their needs. We hope, as the thermal flashlight is picked up and built and used elsewhere to address local needs, a whole spectrum of flashlights will be developed suited to a variety of uses, not to mention a whole range of beautiful images.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the thermal flashlight development including: Manpriya Samra, RJ Steinert and Andrew Anselmo. Public Laboratory is in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign to launch a retail version of aerial-mapping kits and to help fund prototypes that we can send to the community of Public Lab researchers for further development. Learn more and make a contribution here.

The following is a guest post from Sachin Kamdar, the CEO and co-founder of Parse.ly. Currently in stealth, Parse.ly provides a new set of performance metrics, specifically tailored to publishers' needs. Here, Kamdar explores the new age of data and how publishers will be a part of it.

We spend too much time talking about how publishers are adapting to the rise of the web, and very few moments trying to understand the unique challenges their businesses face.

Many pundits have criticized the industry's inability to adapt their business models to a new web-first world. But it's not the publishers that aren't adapting -- it's their toolbelts that haven't evolved to meet most acute needs.

The printing press is a great example of a technology that was quickly and widely adopted, and believe it or not, evolved rather quickly over the course of the last century. I'd argue that publishers are better at adapting to change than we give them credit for.

For example, we rarely ever acknowledge that Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters were into "big data" long before it became a buzzword.

And while the advances in media consumption technology for readers have been rapid, the publisher side of web technology hasn't kept up with the pace. Publishers have been running a marathon in a pair of shoes that are four sizes too small.  

2012 will be the year that publishers get access to sophisticated, innovative technologies that are purpose-built for their needs, and this is precisely what's going to change in the next year. Rather than publishers having to make due with the innovations in consumer technology, the ecosystem of technology vendors will realize the huge opportunity to address publishers' needs. The result will be great news for a publishing industry that has been stunted by poor tools for too long.  

Here's what it's going to look like.

Social Isn't Just For Distribution

For as long as most of us can remember, publishers have been using the likes of Twitter and Facebook to grow readership, improve content reach, and build community. As they've gotten more sophisticated, it has also become apparent that they need more insight into the cause and effect of social sharing. They need to move beyond just looking the part and making nice conversation.

The social web is great for distribution, but it's also good for measuring the performance of content.  

Unfortunately, traditional measurement and analytics tools are designed for radically different business models -- typically B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer) companies that sell physical goods or services. The resulting metrics are tracking for leads, or sheer volume, or purchase cause and effect. But content is an entirely different game.

After years of "one size fits all" social media measurement platforms, 2012 will be the year that publishers are going to be served with a variety of completely new offerings that are purpose-built for content-centric businesses (instead of bending an all-purpose tool to their will).

Publishers need to know what exactly caused an article to go viral -- was it timely content that created a new trend? The guest author and her accompanying network? A particularly influential commenter? A confluence of factors?

Publishers generally already know what happened in the past. But what about the future?

Publishers need to know what content will perform well tomorrow, not just what did well last month. Cause and effect analysis on content that spreads through the social web is going to make the difference between tracking performance and optimizing for the future. It's the difference between reactive and proactive.

You can expect to see a significant effort in the social media space to address the needs of publishers and content-driven organizations in 2012. For example, rising stars like LiveFyre help publishers center the conversation around their content by aggregating all comments from around the social web back to one place. Similarly, emerging technologies, such as Infochimps Social API, are serving publishers by providing data about influence to inform which readers are likely to tip a potentially viral story.

As social media tools that actively address the specific needs of publishers find their way into capable hands expect it to give birth to a completely new breed of journalist.

The Rise of The Cyborg Journalist

If you saw "Page One," the documentary about The New York Times, you might remember several scenes where editors sat around a big table discussing what stories should make the front page for the next day's paper.  

It's almost comical, looking forward to 2012, to think of a newsroom going purely off of gut and intuition when making those decisions.

Next year, these editorial decisions will still require the knowledge and experience of editors who know their readership intimately well; but those editors will soon have a wealth of data at their fingertips to inform their opinions and, ultimately, editorial decisions.

Predictive analytics will give them a sense of how a story will perform, and real-time analytics will give them an up-to-the-second understanding of the collective interests of their readership.

But hunches and instinct will take a back seat to new kinds of technology-driven metrics.

Many newsrooms already use data to inform editorial decisions, but in 2012, it will become common practice to "interview the data" when designing an editorial calendar, or selecting featured articles and posts for the near future. In fact, many newsrooms will require it.

Some in the industry are concerned that the data-driven approach undermines the merits of existing methodologies. For instance, are we just creating an echo chamber if we do what the data says? Shouldn't we publish an article that may not be in demand, but is important for our readers to see?

I'd argue that data-driven journalism isn't so much about the data as it is absorbing it into the existing editorial decision-making processes. This creates a 1+1=3 effect whereby editors are given a new set of highly functional capabilities that improve their abilities to do what they do best. Think augmentation, heightening and exploring -- not replacement or marginalization.

Such is the rise of the cyborg journalist -- an editorial role that is able to simultaneously blend instinct and intuition with data and technology. It's a powerful combination, and the publishers that best incorporate real-time and predictive analytics into their editorial processes will have a tremendous advantage.

Trending Data Overtakes Snapshot or Historic Data

Imagine the data that Apple has on its iPad sales.

The company certainly has some research on customer satisfaction, device glitches, and sales by region, etc. -- but that's standard stuff. It also has data that analyzes sales and satisfaction over time. In the case of a business that sells a physical product like an iPad, the trending data over time is more valuable -- with it, Apple can adapt its sales and marketing strategy.  

Note the weakness of the analogy, however -- an iPad has a shelf life of several years. Content is an entirely different game.

Stories, in some cases, can have evergreen value, but the best-performing content on the web typically has a 24-hour window before traffic to the article or post falls significantly. It is for this reason that publishers have struggled to access trending data to inform their decisions. It's incredibly difficult to collect, crunch and deliver data and insights in that period of time. You have to be really fast. Our systems and tools are only now starting to catch up.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and in 2012 publishers will finally get their hands on trending data that matters. Global trending hashtags are only the very tip of the iceberg.

This year the market is going to be flooded with real-time data analysis tools for content. Not real-time analysis for web pages -- and that's an important difference. We've had real-time web analytics, but those analytics are designed for the concept of a webpage, not the nuances and heartbeat of content.  

SiteSimon and Trap.it are two companies that have built technology to analyze and understand content. These companies apply this understanding to their users' behavior to accurately identify interests and provide personalized recommendations. Percolate, another startup, parses social streams to aid brands and businesses with topic-oriented content curation -- and there's no reason why publishers can't leverage similar technologies to optimize their content, too.

Content is a living thing, constantly zigging and zagging -- if you don't believe me, perhaps you should take a look at Google's Currents, or Yahoo's CORE engine, or any of the new, interactive aggregators (Flipboard, Zite, Pulse). Or simply ask any editor about the sense of constant flux they feel throughout each workday. This business turns on a dime. Are we just as nimble?

A snapshot of a traffic spike tells very little to publishers. On the other hand, knowing how content participates in a trending conversation in real-time is a powerful insight. Great trending data is how editors will be able to infer and plot out what readers want to read next.

Publishers Turning Inward -- It's Still A Business, Baby

If there's one thing that the data-driven journalism trend points to, it's a back-to-basics view of the content business. What's old is new again, as they say.

Ultimately, data-driven journalism isn't about the data, it's about the insight the data gives you. The same is true when analyzing content. It's about supply and demand and learning what content serves readers and the business best. It's about old-fashioned interviewing. Nowadays, the subject is just ... different.

Content performance data gives publishers the ability to better understand their markets (audience), optimize their supply chain, and meet the demands of their customers.

These insights help publishers make more money off of their existing inventory (think old articles that might have new relevance after a new world event). Insights from older data help publishers create new content (product) that is going to be in demand.  

And that's really what it's all about. Data-driven publishers don't have a competitive advantage because they've adopted new technology first. They have an advantage because they understand the unique nuances of their market better than the competition.

And as always, the very best publishers will excel at the things that never go out of style -- great writing, good reporting, and a unique point of view. The only thing that's changed is the more intimate relationship of art and science, in service of better and more timely content.

Sachin Kamdar is an NYC entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of Parse.ly. He graduated with a bachelor's in Economics from NYU and a master's in Education from Pace University. After graduating from NYU, Sachin was an NYC Teaching Fellow, using cutting edge technology to educate students in math and economics at an alternative high school in Brownsville, Brooklyn. He then started an EdTech consulting company that built, implemented and managed systems across schools in NYC.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he wants to be an advocate for students. What does his new-found focus on education policy mean for the city?

• Argentina: Opening Up the Governance of the Judiciary
  "It’s true that accessing judges’ affidavits continues to be a complex process, and that the resistance found in some members of the Judiciary is in contrast to the initiatives begun by the Supreme Court. But the Open Government Initiative and its main precedent, the Center for Judicial Information (http://www.cij.gov.ar/inicio.html ) are policies that we should celebrate, and make us think that thorough regulations and a comprehensive right-to-know law in our country are not very far away. In contrast to a decade ago, today’s Argentina also boasts similar initiatives"
• Imagery Update: Week of January 9th
  New Google sattelite imagery of Syria's Citadel of Aleppo.
• The Drive for Dignity - By Francis Fukuyama | Foreign Policy
  "Whatever one might ultimately think of the sexual-assault charges brought against Dominique Strauss-Kahn by Nafissatou Diallo, the New York City police were not free to ignore them just because he was a high-status IMF director and French presidential candidate, and she a humble hotel maid from Guinea."
• Where people are looking for homes
  "Trulia's most recent visualization shows this growth (bottom bar graph) and where people are searching for homes (map)"
• Programme: Water for Everybody in Andaraí, but is it really for everybody?
  "During the project’s one year and three month existence, what remains of the State’s Water for Everybody program is an obsolete water supply system, three workers, a second pump promised over a year ago, and the signs advertising the project."
• Flying Down to Rio: Brain Gain
  Profiles of Brazilian diaspora returning to work on transparency and sustainability.

I’ve long been frustrated with how stuck-in-the-mud much of the news industry and many journalists regarding their own business models or career path. Seems to me, the key skill to survive and thrive in chaotic, disruptive times is adaptability.

Here’s a great example of adaptability: How the much reviled flavor-of-the-month web startup Chatroulette has found a way to make money off its inevitable tide of exhibitionists:

Fast Company: Chatroulette Founder Andrey Ternovskiy Raises New Funding: “50,000 Naked Men”

“Chatroulette can’t fully wean itself off nudity yet. “You’ll still see some naked men, about one every hour,” Ternovskiy says. Of the roughly 500,000 visitors Chatroulette receives daily, about 10% are males itching to show their business. So Ternovskiy parlays that business into profit.

“Everyday, about 50,000 new men are trying to get naked,” he says. “What we’re doing is selling the naked men to a couple of websites–it’s an investment for us.”

When users flag someone enough times for indecent behavior (by clicking a button), the offender is automatically transferred to a partner site. Thanks to deals with adult dating services like FriendFinder.com, Chatroulette is earning cash hand over fist from the referral traffic.

“Basically, once we detect a person is naked, he’ll be kicked from our service to another website,” Ternovskiy says. ”So, we’re actually getting revenue from naked men right now.”

 

Imagine you write in a non-Latin based script and you are stuck in a foreign airport internet kiosk trying to figure out how to email in your language. Probably the PC you are using has a different set of keyboard other than qwerty and their is no multilingual support in the OS. There are some online tools which can come to your rescue.

Virtual Keyboard:

A virtual keyboard is a software component that allows a user to enter characters. A virtual keyboard can usually be operated with multiple input devices, which may include a touchscreen, an actual keyboard and a computer mouse. (Wikipedia)

Virtual keyboards are commonly used as an on-screen input method in devices with no physical keyboard, such as a pocket computer, personal digital assistant (PDA), tablet computer or touchscreen equipped mobile phone. There are many forms of web-based virtual keyboards. One such great online tool is Gate2Home Virtual Keyboard.

“This site enables you to write in your language wherever you are in the world, with an online onscreen keyboard emulator.

The main purpose of this site is to let everyone who gets stuck without the ability to write/type/search the internet in their own language be able to do just that (usually travelers/tourists or anyone in front of a foreign computer).”

The main feature is that you can choose from a list of keyboard layouts your base keyboard of the pc and select the keyboard of your own language (which maps perfectly) and can use the pc keyboard as well as mouse to enter the words.

The site and the gadget got “honorable mention” in Google Desktop Gadgets Contest and was a main gadget in iGoogle for a long time.

Another such virtual keyboard is Branah.com which supports 53 languages.

Transliteration

Transliteration is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another. (Wikipedia)

Systematic transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter. Google Transliteration is one such widely used tool. New Melchizedec Sundararaj, Software Engineer at Google wrote in April 2010:

For many Internet users, it is not always easy to write in languages that use unique character sets like Hindi, Hebrew and Arabic. Most computer keyboards only allow for the input of Roman characters (the alphabet used by most Western languages) and converting between scripts can be difficult. To make this process easier we launched an improved version of Google Transliteration at the end of last year, a service which enables you to phonetically convert Roman letters into a variety of other scripts.

There are multiple phonetic transliteration tools available online. For example in Bengali language there are options like Prabasi and Microsoft Indic language input tool etc.

It is important to enable users to create online contents in their own language as no communication can be meaningful and oriented in absence of proper language. Virtual Keyboards & Transliteration tools helps us overcome the language barrier online.

Written by Rezwan
· comments (2)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

I’ve been following, with interest, the recent flap sparked by this Jan. 12 column by New York Times public editor (ombudsman), Arthur Brisbane: Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?

Brisbane asked NYT readers: “I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge ‘facts’ that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.”

This led to consternation from many Times readers, who believed this kind of revelation is part of the basic job of any news organization. GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram offered a good roundup of the flap, and at The Guardian Clay Shirky wrote an eloquent deeper exploration of the mindset disconnect between the Times and its readers.

Many people are debating the ethical implications of this issue. However, I’m wondering about the practicalities and possible opportunities.

If the NYT (or any news organization) does decide to point out when sources offer inaccurate “facts,” HOW might they accomplish that? Might there be good options, especially online, that could serve this purpose in addition to inserting relevant text into stories?…

I’m wondering about tools that might visually or otherwise flag to a web reader when a factual assertion has caveats — such as it’s probably not true, or could be stretching the point, or is a conflation, or lack corroboration or sourcing, etc.

It just seems to me that especially in digital media we might be able to do with some of the nuances of gradations of truth in ways that go beyond mere words on a page.

Your thoughts? Please comment below or e-mail me. Offer examples of potential strategies or tools, if you know of any. I plan to use this information in a post to the Knight Digital Media Center site, so expect to be quoted.

Thanks!

Tomorrow (Jan. 14, 2012) marks the one-year anniversary of Tunisia's liberation from 23 years of oppression under dictator Ben Ali. It was a liberation sparked by one man's shocking public protest against injustice through self-immolation and fueled by the power of citizen journalism and social media. During the last months of 2010, Tunisians captured footage of protests and government oppression and shared them with thousands via Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Within weeks, similar protests sprang up in Egypt, Libya and other Arab countries, giving birth to the Arab Spring.

With the power of the media now in the hands of every citizen with a smartphone, questions about ethics and accuracy are working their way through the journalism industry -- how do we know what we see on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter is true? Who are the media watchdogs for a form of journalism rooted in unedited immediacy?

For many of the Arab Spring countries, the press has long served as an arm of the government. As the doors to freedom and democracy swing open in the wake of revolutions, a flood of citizen journalists rushes in to take the place of media outlets held up by old regimes. But without training in ethics, accuracy and production skills, these new citizen journalists risk becoming puppets of influential businesses, organizations and new governments yet again. As Fatma Mokadmi, vice president of Tunisian PaCTE (a citizen organization formed after the Tunisian revolution to help build a democratic Tunisia), shared with me recently:

"Tunisians today believe in the role of citizen journalism in preserving freedom of speech; however, we need it to be an efficient and credible institution and not a double-edged sword."

As a photojournalist and journalism instructor, I often work with underrepresented groups to help empower them to tell their own stories through digital media. My work is part of a burgeoning trend in journalism training for the masses. Organizations like Newsmotion.org and People's Production House have teamed up to train underrepresented communities in the U.S. and abroad and distribute their stories online. Al Jazeera recently launched Somalia Speaks, a pilot project aimed at telling the stories of seldom-heard Somali citizens via SMS.

Lessons from Congo

Two years ago, as civil unrest began to brew in the Arab world, I was returning from three months of teaching multimedia journalism in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country plagued by civil war and injustice for decades. I went to teach students at a small university in war-torn North Kivu province the ethics of journalism and multimedia, so they could begin to report and share stories about their own communities with the rest of the world.

In Congo, I watched students learn to report on the truth in their communities and to tell the stories that they considered to be important, not only the stories the West has grown accustomed to hearing -- stories of rape, violence, war and corruption. In return, my students taught me about human resilience and the ability to affect change in the face of oppression. Their stories, posted on a website created for the project called Congo in Focus, reached well beyond the borders of Congo and continue to do so today.

During our three months together, my Congolese students learned that a video journalism story isn't the same thing as a Hollywood film. They learned that taking a strong photo takes time and patience; that staging photos or asking subjects to perform an action for a video shoot isn't ethical journalism. And they learned to make mistakes and learn from them. Last month, I wrote Francine Nabintu, one of my former students, to congratulate her on an election piece she photographed and reported for PBS NewsHour about the recent elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Her response reminded me of why I love teaching in underrepresented communities:

"You inspired me in everything I'm doing today. I will never forget your encouraging us by saying 'try again.' You taught us to trust in ourselves."

The fact that NewsHour chose to highlight a story reported, written and photographed by a Congolese instead of a foreign correspondent in Congo brought the point of my teaching journalism in Congo full circle.

Here's her NewsHour story:

Speak Out Tunisia

As protests and revolutions sweep across the Arab world, citizen journalism has become the primary source of news for thousands in the Arab world. With Speak Out Tunisia, my next citizen journalism training project formed in collaboration with Tunisian PaCTE, the hope is to begin to build a network of educated, ethical journalists across Tunisia who can continue to report accurately and fairly on their country, government and communities to the rest of the world.

Both the Congo and Tunisia projects grew from the same basic belief -- that a free and democratic society begins with a free and fair press. But as I've collaborated with Tunisians these past few months to shape the Speak Out Tunisia project, I realize increasingly that this project will take a different form than Congo in Focus. There is momentum already. Tunisians were well-versed in using social media long before the revolution. The power of the people to capture and disseminate videos and photos via the Internet already exists. The goal of Speak Out Tunisia will be to harness that power and turn it into well-produced, ethical and balanced reporting that Tunisians can trust.

Khalil Ghorbal, a Tunisian living and working in the U.S. now and core member of Tunisian PaCTE, believes that building a network of well-trained, ethical citizen journalists is a first step toward building a strong press in Tunisia.

"The Tunisian press doesn't need to be improved because it doesn't exist yet. The media before the revolution was nothing but an arm of the dictatorship -- shaped and managed to glorify a now-ousted scarecrow. Media has an important role to play in democracy. It is the watchdog that ensures that lawmakers adhere to their oaths to serve the people."

Anne Medley is a photojournalist and videographer based in the United States. She teaches photojournalism and multimedia journalism at the University of Montana, the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute and the Rocky Mountain School of Photography. Medley has taught multimedia workshops in Europe, Africa and throughout the United States. Speak Out Tunisia is currently in its fundraising phase via Kickstarter.com. The project's goal is to reach $19,000 before January 25.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Council Speaker Christine Quinn has decided to back a compromise legislation on the living wage that according to the Wall Street Journal would require,  “businesses that receive subsidies of $1 million or more will be required to pay their employees $10 an hour with benefits or $11.50 an hour without benefits. But in a compromise, the bill will no longer require the tenants who move in after these projects are completed to also abide by the higher wages.”

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz approves of the deal and he released this statement:

“I am extremely happy that we have reached a deal on the ‘Fair Wages for New Yorkers’ Act, and that this important bill will finally see a vote in the City Council. The deal we have reached today creates the strongest ‘living wage’ legislation in the nation, one that will demand that direct recipients of significant taxpayer subsidies will do better by their employees. This will guarantee that happens and marks an important shift in the economic development policy in the City of New York. This bill sends an important message to the business community.  Indeed, New York City is open for business, but not at the expense of the taxpayer.

“I would like to thank Speaker Quinn for working closely with my office on this compromise. I would also like to thank City Council members G. Oliver Koppell and Annabel Palma, all of our City Council co-sponsors, and the entire Living Wage NYC coalition for their strong advocacy on this legislation.”

“This bill will ensure that taxpayer subsidies are spent not only to enrich developers, but to improve the quality of life of their employees. Today’s announcement is a victory for the people of this City, and I look forward to this legislation becoming law,” said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

The United Federation of Teachers is holding a press conference at 3:15 p.m today to announce that it asking the state labor board to mediate talks with the city because of the breakdown over teacher evaluation talks and the Mayor’s insistence in his State of the State speech that he will unilaterally move forward with a teacher evaluation system in low performing schools. Here is the full press release:

Teachers Union Asks State to

Order Mediation in Evaluation Talks

UFT seeks order from state labor board that would

force city to take part in mandatory mediation

on new teacher evaluation system

UFT President Michael Mulgrew holds news conference to announce that in the wake of the city’s walking out of negotiations on a new teacher evaluation system, the union has filed an impasse petition with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB).  If PERB finds that an impasse exists, it will appoint a mediator and force the city to participate in attempts to resolve the issue.

WHEN:           Friday, January 13, 2012      3:  15 p.m.

WHERE:         52 Broadway, 2nd floor

Imagine 150,000 people from 140 countries wandering 1.6 million square feet of exhibit space in search of the latest whiz-bang flat-screen TV, tablet, smartphone or souped-up teched-out car. This is the International CES show in Las Vegas, which has mushroomed from 17,500 attendees in 1967 to the massive techno-hordes of today. This could be either your most incredible dream or a nightmare waiting to happen. Often, for tech journalists and bloggers, it ends up being both. So what's your take on CES? Have you attended and enjoyed what you experienced? Is it your idea of the 7th level of Hades? Vote in our poll (where you can choose multiple answers) and explain more in the comments below.

The Consumer Electronics Show is...

To hear more about CES, check out the latest edition of the Mediatwits podcast, with two tech journalists reporting from the conference floor.

P.S. From the CES website:

Products that Debuted at CES

Videocassette Recorder (VCR), 1970
Laserdisc Player, 1974

Camcorder, 1981

Compact Disc Player, 1981

Digital Audio Technology, 1990

Compact Disc - Interactive, 1991

Mini Disc, 1993

Radio Data System, 1993

Digital Satellite System, 1994

Digital Versatile Disk (DVD), 1996

High Definition Television (HDTV), 1998 Hard-disc VCR (PVR), 1999

Digital Audio Radio (DAR), 2000

Microsoft Xbox, 2001

Plasma TV, 2001

Home Media Server, 2002

HD Radio, 2003

Blu-Ray DVD, 2003

HDTV PVR, 2003

HD Radio, 2004

IP TV, 2005

An explosion of digital content services, 2006

New convergence of content and technology, 2007

OLED TV, 2008

3D HDTV, 2009

Tablets, Netbooks and Android Devices, 2010

Connected TV, Smart Appliances, Android Honeycomb, Ford's Electric Focus, Motorola Atrix, Microsoft Avatar Kinect, 2011

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Nathan Gibbs

1. New York Times public editor smashes himself with boomerang (Reuters)

2. Study: Old-school TV viewing is still growing (paidContent)

3. Apple cancels in-store iPhone 4S sales in Beijing and Shanghai because of unruly crowds (AllThingsD)

4. Study: Your Facebook personality is the real you (ReadWriteWeb)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Welcome to the 33rd episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali. This week we have a special show focused on the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) happening in Las Vegas all week. Apple isn't there and Microsoft did its last keynote presentation there. Is the show losing momentum? Are we all burned out on gadgets and flatter TVs? We talk to two tech journalists on the CES floor, Rob Pegoraro and TechDirt's Mike Masnick, about the various new TV sets, tablets and smartphones. Plus, Masnick gives us an update about how the CEA and many folks at the show are overwhelmingly opposed to the two anti-piracy bills, SOPA and PIPA, before Congress.

Meanwhile, search giant Google caused a stir by integrating Google+ much more deeply into its search results. The new "Search Plus Your World" has been criticized as unfairly giving Google+ an advantage over Twitter and Facebook in search results. Google responded by saying that it was upset that Twitter didn't renew its contract to be included in search results. Will this move bring more trouble to Google, with the Feds already investigating the company over privacy issues?

Check it out!

mediatwits33.mp3

Subscribe to the podcast here

Subscribe to Mediatwits via iTunes

Follow @TheMediatwits on Twitter here

Intro and outro music by 3 Feet Up; mid-podcast music by Autumn Eyes via Mevio's Music Alley.

Here are some highlighted topics from the show:

Intro

1:00: Background on the CES show

3:00: Journalists weary and tired of CES now?

4:00: The pain of CES

4:45: Rundown of topics on the show

Report from CES

5:15: Special guests from CES: Rob Pegoraro and Mike Masnick

6:10: How is this show different than previous shows?

7:50: Masnick: Thin TVs are impressive

10:40: Pegoraro: Color e-ink readers might boost e-readers

13:30: Masnick: Hard to see disruptive technology at first

CEA opposing SOPA

16:10: Many people at CES are opposing Stop Online Piracy Act, including Consumer Electronics Association

19:20: Why SOPA went too far

20:00: Pegoraro: History of greedy, restrictive bills put forward by entertainment industry

22:05: Masnick: When entertainment biz loses fights, they often still win

Google integrates Google+ in search

24:00: Mark gives background on move by Google

26:40: Why can't Google put social, private search in a new tab?

29:10: Facebook, Twitter are feeling left out of Google search

More Reading

CNET's Best of CES at CNET

CES XV at RobPegoraro.com

Tech Charms: Flying Cameras, Musical Purses at WSJ

Desperation Of SOPA/PIPA Supporters On Display At CES at TechDirt

Boo-Freaking-Hoo: RIAA Complains That 'The Deck Is Stacked' Against Them On CES Panels at TechDirt

Author of Controversial Piracy Bill Now Says 'More Study' Needed at WSJ Digits

Google's Results Get More Personal With Search Plus Your World at Search Engine Land

Is adding Google+ to search a red flag for regulators? at GigaOm

Search Plus Your World -- As Long As Its Our World at SearchBlog

Compete to Death or Cooperate to Compete? at SearchBlog

Weekly Poll

Don't forget to vote in our weekly poll, this time about the CES show:

The Consumer Electronics Show is...

Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. and Circle him on Google+

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

A version of this post first appeared on the MIT Center for Civic Media blog.

I was supposed to speak on a panel about SOPA recently with the Northeast chapters of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. It was to serve as an educational discussion for local members, but at the national level, both unions have already officially endorsed SOPA. I spent the weekend preparing remarks, but the panel has been postponed, or possibly canceled, on account of AFTRA and SAG failing to provide representatives to discuss the bill. I can only hope this is an indication that they're reconsidering their public support of one of the least American bills to gain serious traction in Congress, as a number of other companies have done in the face of public backlash.

The thing is, unions should never have supported this bill to begin with. At their best, organized labor is one of the most surefire ways to create a more equal, sustainable instance of capitalism.

They are the people who brought us the weekend and ended domestic child labor, a more recent phenomenon than we might like to admit. In recent times, the middle class has been under siege for years by politicians erasing taxes on the rich while simultaneously cutting benefits for the poor. Unions have the power to make things more fair, and as a result, they're under constant attack.

But at their worst, unions can behave as reactionary organizations that respond purely to the financial interest of their members, or even just their employers' commercial interests, at the expense of the general good of society. It appears that disruptive technology we know as the Internet is putting them in this position. National unions' stances on net neutrality, and now SOPA, have created a fault line between progressives who cherish free speech and unions focused on short-term paychecks rather than long-term investments in democratic communications. The Occupy movement has worked together with organized labor, for example, but wouldn't support this train-wreck of a proposal for government censorship (see the comments on the AFL-CIO's blog post mentioning SOPA as but one example).

costs outweigh benefits

Granting the government the power to create arbitrary blacklists and extralegal censorship will cost society at an order of magnitude more than union members stand to benefit. SOPA would break the Internet and set up a censorship regime that circumvents existing legal channels to serve one industry's financial desires. Bastardizing the technical infrastructure of the Internet and forcing payment system providers and search engines to cut off service to an organization without a trial is extralegal, and a misuse of these channels. One thing that's been somewhat lost in the uproar over SOPA is that legal channels are already in place to enforce anti-piracy law. As the MIT Center for Civic Media's Ethan Zuckerman pointed out to me, U.S. law already permits seizure of domestic domain names that are used for piracy, and 150 domains were seized in November alone. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is already U.S. law, and entertainment companies have spoken to its effectiveness.

The Writers Guild of America West has realized some of the implications of SOPA, and although the group is still concerned about piracy, has since come out against the bill in meetings with members of Congress:

They discussed concerns with the bill's implications for competition and an open Internet. Although the WGAW strongly supports combating piracy, the competition, First Amendment, and due process concerns the bill creates must be addressed.

But other, larger, unions remain behind the legislation. I can't be the only person who was surprised to see several top unions, including the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations), SAG, and AFTRA, on the list of organizations supporting SOPA. I'm not sure how SOPA or PIPA would help the actual members of these unions, other than further enrich their employers' CEOs. But the AFL-CIO stands up for it.

I sympathize with the members of these unions, because it's plausible that online piracy is hurting their livelihoods. But a Congressional Research Services report found that the absolute number of jobs in the entertainment industry has actually increased since 1995, and disputes some of the other numbers the entertainment companies and unions are using in their letter to Congress.

It's also possible that many of these jobs are going away because their employers have based their businesses on the sale of physical goods, and haven't done a great or timely job of adjusting to obvious consumer shifts in consumption of content. Their very industries, represented by the trade groups these unions have aligned themselves with, such as the MPAA and the RIAA, have relied for years on reselling "Star Wars" and Beatles albums to the same customers every time the physical format changes. Digital content has brought about the era of the hit single and unlimited streaming, both of which break from the "you must buy this entire album" business model. This is a natural market shift that has nothing to do with piracy. I think it's important to consider that the disruptive technology these trade groups are railing against isn't just file-sharing. They've failed to adapt to simpler, legal shifts in their customers' preferences. (For more on this point, see "Why the Movie Industry Can't Innovate and the Result is SOPA," recommended by my friend Ted Fickes).

Even with regards to piracy, the director of business development at Valve, which sells expensive, pirate-able computer games as convenient digital downloads, said it best: "Pirates are underserved customers.When you think about it that way, you think, 'Oh my gosh, I can do some interesting things and make some interesting money off of it.'" Rather than partner with entertainment trade groups to stifle innovation at an unprecedented scale, creative unions should be working with web startups to enrich the emerging creative-as-producer business models.

how sopa hurts free speech

Besides the financial arguments around piracy and business models, SOPA could hurt unions' ability to organize and negotiate in other, more profound ways. To quote Matt Browner Hamlin, a senior fellow at Citizen Engagement Lab and former deputy director of New Media at the SEIU:

The Internet is a medium of communication and organizing that is evolving in ways we can't predict. It is a democratic medium where you don't have to be a massive corporation to have your voice heard. We should promote the ability of workers to engage in this transformative medium and empower them to find ways to use it to help themselves on the job. SOPA would fundamentally change how the Internet works and thus disempower workers from creating and sharing ideas, from organizing for their rights, and from having a counter-balance in the fight against the boss.

Another friend and SEIU veteran, Joaquin Guerra, points to echoes of this same debate from 2007, when the Communications Workers of America stood in the way of discussion on net neutrality. It was another recent example of a union standing on the wrong side of free speech to benefit their employers, and I guess, by trickle-down economics, themselves:

The topic was net neutrality, the idea that the Internet should not be controlled by telephone and cable companies. It was nowhere to be seen at the conference. The reason, according to a conference organizer, is that "the unions" have a problem with net neutrality.

"The unions" in this case is basically one union, the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Like it or not, CWA is the key to whether the Internet will continue to be open, or whether the telephone and cable companies will turn it into an instrument under their control. The prospects are not encouraging.

To put it more strongly, given the influence the union wields with Democratic legislators in Congress and in state houses, the prospects are downright discouraging. Democrats who traditionally take progressive positions on issues are also Democrats who don't want to cross organized labor. When there is a conflict, labor wins. And if labor is allied with the company, it's no contest. CWA and, to a lesser extent, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), could free Democrats to vote for a free and open Internet. But in a demonstration of the Stockholm syndrome, they won't.

I do sympathize, because disruptive technologies are truly disruptive. They can eliminate entire categories of employment virtually overnight. As my brothers and I emailed about what to get each other for Christmas this year, it struck us that we no longer needed to spend much on entertainment gifts. We get most of our music from Spotify, our video from Hulu and Netflix, and all of our book requests were followed by, "Used is fine. Get it for a couple of bucks on Amazon." My brother joked, "How anyone makes money in this country in 10 years is beyond me, but I suppose we can all buy handmade jewelry and chocolates from one another."

It's not clear where the next gravy train is. If I knew the answer, I'd go start that company. Plenty of people are starting these companies. But an important thing to keep in mind is that you can't un-invent technology. John Philip Sousa's railing against the gramophone and the entire concept of a recorded music industry didn't prevent those technologies from defining the 20th century. But, importantly, it also didn't eliminate the allure or the market for live music.

The answer to disruptive technology is not to employ the United States government to enact SOPA. Rather than help their companies collect collateral damage on younger companies that have made the Internet a prosperous, profitable, and relatively open creative space, unions should look seriously at alternatives to SOPA in fighting online piracy. I doubt that regulation is as viable a solution as creating compelling legal businesses around the globe, but if a law must be passed, the OPEN Act might be a better place to start. You can read some pros and cons for this approach over at TechDirt.

SOPA is good for one group, and one group only: members of Congress raising cash from the entertainment and now, by necessity, tech industries.

Members of the unions still supporting SOPA (the AFL-CIO, SAG, and AFTRA) should make it an internal issue, immediately, to persuade their leadership to take their name off this bill.

Image courtesy of Flickr user yoshiffles.

We take a look at Mayor Michael Bloomberg's State of the City address and examine what the city should expect in the coming months.

The environmental citizen journalists of Nomad Green are voicing their opinions on issues surrounding the degrading environment in Mongolia. The articles are originally posted in Mongolian language and some of them are being translated in Chinese and English.

City University student Munkhtsatsral. B reports (translated by Bolorerdene) that Global warming started to affect in Mongolia since 1970 and these natural disasters occur most in Mongolia:

Wildfires: 15% of Mongolia's landscape consists of forests which are prone to wildfires. In 1998, 132 wildfires occured.

Dust storms and Blizzards: In 1996-1997 there was a blizzard that caused 600000 cattle to freeze and affected 20% of Mongolia’s land.

Drought: One-fourth of Mongolia becomes affected by drought in every 2 or 3 years.

And also there is heavy rainfall and flood.

Traditional dwellings in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, are responsible for 60% of the city's air pollution during the long winter months. Image by Andrew Cullen. Copyright Demotix.

Bulgantsetseg.N. argues that the Mongolian dwelling Ger (Yurt) is a traditional habitat which is strongly related to the Mongolian cultural features, living condition, weather condition and other reasons. Although it is the main cause of pollution in the capital Ulaanbaatar, they can be used in countryside.

Mongol ger is not just a habitat that poor people live in. it looks like a simple consumption in our everyday life, but it is not as simple as it is seen. This is real historical evidence that shows Mongolian traditional culture in early days. That is why Mongol ger should be used for people like herders in countryside, so that Mongol ger won’t lose essential things itself.

Bolorerdene E points out that the increase in pollution in Ulaanbaatar in the last 10 years is severe, not only because of air pollution. Bolorerdene comments:

Every year there’s 600 thousand meter cube trash, 25% is paper, 17% organic, 34% is plastic, can, bottles, and ash. The 20% of dangerous trash is exposed and without any attention, so the government should take an immediate move against this.

Urantuya.M. talks about citizens' consciousness regarding proper disposal of garbage and using fumeless fuel for a greener environment.

Bayarmaa.J. draws attention to another problem in Ulaanbaatar:

The detergent facility of Ulaanbaatar must filter the dirty water before throw water out to the Tuul River; they just throw water with chemical toxic substance out to the Tuul River straight away because of technical error for the last years. The fishes in Tuul River have been destroyed by big number by people’s wrong action.

Read the Nomad Green website for more updates.

Written by Rezwan
· comments (0)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

By Robert Niles: Charles Bronson stars in... Photo by Fish Cop at en.wikipedia Truth Vigilante From IMDB*: "A New York Times reporter becomes a one-man vigilante squad after his story is murdered by copy editors, in which he randomly goes out and kills would-be journalists in the mean streets after dark." (*Not really) C'mon. If we're going to be truth vigilantes now, let's take a lesson from the star of "Death Wish" and do it right, okay? Maybe more people would buy newspapers if we juiced 'em up with some staff-on-source (or even staff-on-staff!) violence. Why should rap stars get all the good beefs? Reporter is such a passive term. Weak. Wimpy. Vigilante? Now, that's a word that'll sell papers!

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Michael Bloomberg may not be the best of buds but Cuomo found a lot to like in Bloomberg’s State of the City message–especially the parts about education and pension reform. “I commend Mayor Bloomberg for outlining a positive vision for New York City’s future and the most important part of building that future, our students. The State and City’s education system is facing a crisis in accountability and performance. Our continuing pattern of being number one in the nation on spending in education and thirty-eighth in graduation rates hurts our students across the State, including the over 1.1 million public school students in New York City,” said Cuomo in a statement.

Here is the full statement:
“I commend Mayor Bloomberg for outlining a positive vision for New York City’s future and the most important part of building that future, our students. The State and City’s education system is facing a crisis in accountability and performance. Our continuing pattern of being number one in the nation on spending in education and thirty-eighth in graduation rates hurts our students across the State, including the over 1.1 million public school students in New York City.

As I said in my State of the State Address, and Mayor Bloomberg reiterated in his State of the City today, we need an education system that puts students first. Both the Mayor and I agree that this starts with implementing a teacher evaluation system that holds teachers accountable for their performance. I look forward to working together to create an accountability system that puts the interests of students ahead of the interests of the education bureaucracy.

Additionally, I appreciate Mayor Bloomberg’s support for the much needed reform of our pension system. There is no longer any doubt that we need to reform the pension system by creating a Tier VI and we need to do it now.

I look forward to working with Mayor Bloomberg on these and other issues outlined in his speech today to build a better future for New York City and New York State.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg used his State of the State address to announce his support for an increased minimum wage. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver backs the idea big time and he issued this statement:

“I applaud and thank Mayor Bloomberg for joining our call to increase the minimum wage. As I have said, it is wrong to expect anyone – let alone working families – to be able to afford the cost of living today and invest in their future on a salary of $7.25 an hour. Increasing the minimum wage would benefit more than 14 percent of our workforce. Mayor Bloomberg’s commitment to helping the more than 1.2 million low wage workers in New York climb the ladder of financial security is welcome news.”

First Amendment doctrine is sort of obsessed with the idea of a public/private divide – the idea that we can clearly slice society up into those things that are "public" (about which we want robust discussion, so we protect that discussion with the Bill of Rights) and those that are "private" (less societally important, so less protected). It's always been a line difficult to enforce in practice – at what point is something, or someone, "public"? – but it at least makes a certain conceptual sense.

But (at the risk of turning this into a hackneyed "social media changes everything!" post), social media (maybe) changes (at least some) things. As we take more and more information that the law would traditionally see as "private," and begin publishing it online, the public/private divide is only going to get blurrier.

I'm thinking of Fraley v. Facebook, one of the pending class-actions against our favorite blue friend. A few weeks back, the federal district court denied Facebook's motion to dismiss (full CMLP threat entry here, .pdf of the order here), and there's all kinds of interesting stuff going on (including some chin-stroke-worthy Section 230 stuff, but the Rule 12 stage is too early to say anything on that score). I'd recommend giving the threat entry a skim, but to briefly knock out the need-to-know for my purposes:

The lawsuit surrounds Facebook's introduction of a "Sponsored Stories" ad system, through which Liking companies on Facebook can appear as advertisements to your friends. (The Like shows up as it normally would in your timeline, and also appears verbatim in the right-hand-side ad bar under a "sponsored stories" header.) The plaintiffs are alleging a violation of California's commercial misappropriation statute, which protects against companies using your identity for commercial gain without your consent. Facebook, as you'd expect, has plenty of defenses lined up, but the one I'm interested in here is the "newsworthiness" defense.

The California statute has an exception for "newsworthy" content, which makes sense – news organizations are businesses, so any time they report on someone famous they're doing it for "commercial gain" (i.e. more readership and more money). At this point, for our purposes the statute more or less falls away: as the court says, the "newsworthiness" exemption exists for First Amendment reasons (i.e. the statute would be unconstitutional without it) and it "tracks the constitutional right to freedom of speech[.]"

Facebook raised two arguments as to why the newsworthiness exemption applied to the Sponsored Stories, and it's these, especially the first, that I want to think about here: 1) that Facebook users "are 'public figures' to their friends," and 2) that any "expressions of consumer opinion" are newsworthy in and of themselves. Roll that phrase over in your head for a second: "public figures to your friends." Even granting the ambiguity ("Facebook friends" vs. "actual friends"), the oxymoron-ish-ness of being public to my select group of friends is enough to send me spiraling into an existential crisis. If something is only public to some people, and not to others, what does "public" even mean any more?

The Fraley court (understandably) dodges the chance to call 40 years of public/private First Amendment doctrine into question. (Instead, the court falls back on 9th Circuit precedent saying that using people's identities purely for advertising purposes doesn't qualify for the exemption – also interesting, but that takes us on a detour into the land of Commercial Speech, and I'd prefer to avoid that road for now.) But that seems to be the implication of Facebook's argument: within the walls of Facebook, nothing you do is private.

And in a certain light, it sort of makes sense. Let's take defamation law, since that's the 900-pound gorilla whenever you're talking public/private stuff: your basic Sullivan tells you that public figures can only win defamation cases if they show "actual malice," not just negligence. So, play it out: Say you and I are friends on Facebook. I post something about you, and you know it's false. You feel defamed. You sue me. But if you're a "public figure" in the Facebook world, and that's where my post is seen (let's pretend it doesn't leak out into the real world), then you'd have to show that I posted about you with actual malice. (This hypothetical gets complicated quickly: Are you a public figure to your Facebook friends? Mine? The ones we have in common? For simplicity's sake, we'll say: To anyone who sees the post on Facebook.)

One of the classic justifications for "public figure" status, making it harder for famous people to win defamation cases, is that putting up with false statements about you is part of the deal. When you put yourself into the public light, you have to put up with the consequences – among them, people saying false stuff about you. Sometimes, you'll see people make the related claim that famous people can more readily fight falsehood by accessing mass media (e.g. it's easier for Jay-Z to disseminate his side of the story than it is for you and me (unless you are in fact Young Hov, in which case, thanks for reading; big fan)).

Notice that both of these justifications – basically, the "you asked for it" and "you have the ability to respond" arguments – could apply to Facebook users. Facebook is free and voluntary, so maybe putting up with people saying stupid things is part of the territory. And when I write something false about you, you can easily respond through the same channels and get your side of the story heard.

There's a tinge of this approach in the Fraley order. As part of showing that they have sustained economic harm, the plaintiffs argue that their endorsement of products – by, for example, clicking a Like button – has economic value, just like a celebrity endorsement would have. Facebook, by co-opting that value by selling the Sponsored Stories, thus vacuumed up money that the individual users could have gotten by exchanging their "endorsements" for compensation directly from the advertisers. The court bought this, at least enough to deny a motion to dismiss, and mentioned that "the distinction between a 'celebrity' and a 'non-celebrity' seems to be an increasingly arbitrary one."

Now, I don't mean to overstate the importance of one order in one case. And the motion to dismiss stage is still awfully early, where the plaintiffs get a lot of the benefit of the doubt. But Fraley at least highlights a problem that's only going to grow – the decay of the public/private divide. We're used to applying those categories pretty mechanically (so-and-so involved a matter of public concern, so protection; this guy's a public figure, so protection), but as we reach the point where everything is public, we're going to have to take a step back and ask the harder question: not "Is this public?" but "Is this something the First Amendment should be protecting?"

That's some heavy stuff, and I'm not going to pretend to have answers here. But we're going to need to figure out something workable if we want to preserve the protections we're so fond of. One of the big benefits of the public/private distinction, of course, is its clarity, which lets everybody know where they stand and keeps judges from over-reaching into speech rights in the name of "fairness." Once the fogginess creeps in, it's easier for courts to side with seemingly sympathetic parties against the more abstract speech rights. To fight that, we'll need to be able to present some kind of coherent framework for deciding what gets protected and what doesn't in a world where everything is "public" in one sense or another.

John Sharkey is a CMLP intern in his second year at Harvard Law. He is enjoying the Ricky Rubio experience. 

(Photo courtesy Flickr user pshab, used under a Creatve Commons BY-NC 2.0 license.)

Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered his State of the City Address today at  Morris High School in the Bronx. Here are his prepared remarks:

“Thank you. Mayors Koch and Dinkins, Speaker Quinn and Minority Leader Oddo, Public Advocate De Blasio, Comptroller Liu, Borough Presidents, District Attorneys, members of the City Council and State Legislature, my fellow New Yorkers – it’s great to be in the Bronx.

“This is the birthplace of legends like Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the workplace of legends like Mariano Rivera. And it’s also the home of future superstars like every member of The Celia Cruz High School Latin Band, the PS 32 Chorus and the Keltic Dreams Irish Dancers. Weren’t they fantastic?

“In a city that is the ‘Capital of Innovation’ – this one borough has given us some of the world’s great authors, artists and architects, not to mention the pioneers of hip-hop and salsa.

“The Bronx has always been a borough of innovators and we can see it most recently in the students here at the Academy for Collaborative Studies, who built an award-winning robot. How about the Robot Club?

“It’s an honor to be introduced by a teacher like Ishmael Kamara, what an inspirational story, and by Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., who we’ve been glad to work with on so many projects. And it’s a pleasure to be here at Gouverneur Morris High School Campus.

“In case you don’t recall Senator Gouverneur Morris from American history class, he was a Founding Father from this section of the Bronx – hence ‘Morrisania’ – and he’s credited with drafting much of the U.S. Constitution, including the phrase that still defines the spirit of our great nation: We the people.

“That’s the spirit that has defined our work here in New York City over the past decade and allowed us to accomplish great things.

“For instance, in 2011, we said we’d fight to make marriage equality a reality across the state. And thanks to the leadership of Governor Cuomo and both parties of the Legislature, and the hard work of my Chief Policy Advisor John Feinblatt – we did. Today, New Yorkers are free to marry the person they love.

“In 2011, we said we’d work with the State to bring taxi service to all five boroughs. And again, thanks to the Governor and legislative leaders, especially Bronx Assemblyman Carl Heastie, and also David Yassky and Micah Lasher – we did.

“We said we’d launch a new East River ferry service, balance the budget and hold the line on taxes. And in partnership with Speaker Christine Quinn and the City Council – we did.

“We said we’d make New York City safer and healthier than ever and with Commissioners Kelly, Cassano, Farley and Sadik-Khan leading the way, we did. In 2011, we had the lowest traffic fatalities in history, near record lows in crime and fire fatalities and life expectancy rates that are far surpassing the nation.

“We said we’d place a record number of New Yorkers in jobs and with Commissioner Rob Walsh leading our Small Business Services team, we did.

“We said we’d launch the most comprehensive effort to connect black and Latino young men to jobs and education, and thanks to Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs and our commissioners, and the support we received from George Soros, we did.

“We said we’d seek to attract a world-class university to build a new science and engineering campus here – the brainchild of EDC President Seth Pinsky and Deputy Mayor Bob Steel – and we did.

“We said we’d open the new section of the High Line, break ground on the new Whitney Museum and complete the expansion of the Museum of the Moving Image, and because of the leadership of Commissioners Amanda Burden, Kate Levin and Katherine Oliver, we did.

“And we said we’d open the 9/11 Memorial in time for the 10th anniversary of the attacks, and thanks to a great American who served this country in World War II and has served our country and our city ever since – John Whitehead – we did.

“Thanks to all these leaders, and so many other members of the city’s outstanding workforce and all of our partners in the private sector. We accomplished big things in 2011 – but don’t worry: we have even bigger plans for 2012.

“The beginning of our agenda for the year ahead is actually rooted here, in the history of this school. Gouverneur Morris High was created out of the School Reform Law of 1896 – 116 years ago. When the reform law was being debated, there were protests, rallies, controversy. Sound familiar?

“Well, we are here today because the work of school reform – as difficult as it can be – is still far from done. And it is now more important than ever.

“Nine years ago this month, on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, I gave a speech outlining our plans to transform a badly broken school system. Back then, the graduation rate had been stuck at 50 percent or less for decades. Violent crime, social promotion, hiring based on political connections – they all plagued our schools. Parents had too few choices about where to send their children to school, and they had even less information about how a school was performing. And the worst part was many people had stopped believing that anything in our schools could get better.

“Well, I know you didn’t believe that. And we didn’t believe that either. Together, we took on the broken system, and by stressing accountability and innovation and ending social promotion, we’ve made real progress turning it around.

“Today, graduation rates are up 40 percent since 2005, versus just 8 percent in the rest of the state – the whole rest of New York State. And the biggest gains have been made by black and Hispanic students, whose graduation rates are up more than 50 percent. We’ve cut the dropout rate – and school crime – nearly in half.

“And we’ve given our parents far more information about their kids’ schools – and far more top-quality school choices. In fact, a recent study by the non-partisan Brookings Institution found that we now have the most effective school choice program of any large district in the country. That’s right – the most effective in the United States of America.

“By almost any measure, students are doing better and our school system is heading in the right direction. Of course, we still have a long way to go. No doubt about that. But today, tens of thousands of students who may have ended up on street corners or in prison if the old system had remained in place – are now in college or starting their careers.

“Just think about where we are today. Ten years ago, the graduation rate here at Morris High was only 27 percent. Now, two-thirds of students graduate in four years, and three-fourths graduate within six years.

“And I have to say, those students who persevere beyond four years – often while dealing with family obligations or language barriers – really deserve to be celebrated because their determination and drive, their hunger for a better life, makes their accomplishment even more impressive. We have some students with us today who are on track to graduate, and I’d like to ask them – and their teachers and administrators – to stand up.

“The success our students have achieved demonstrates the promise of education reform. But the unemployment in the neighborhood surrounding this school demonstrates the urgency of fulfilling that promise now for all students, in all schools throughout our city. Unemployment is higher in the Bronx than in any other borough. People here want to work, but jobs are hard to come by. And in too many cases where jobs do exist, they require skills and diplomas that put them out of reach for many people.

“For my generation, a high school diploma was often enough to get a good job and enter the middle class. Today, graduating from high school without the grades to go to college, or the skills to enter a trade, generally means, at best, a low-wage job with limited prospects.

“Or, for far too many, it means beginning a life of unemployment and crime. We just cannot allow that to happen. If you come from a middle class family, as I do, and if you believe that education is the ticket to the middle class, as I do, then there is no escaping the fact that we cannot accept failing schools. And we cannot accept excuses for inaction or delay.

“All across the city, we face that same challenge – the challenge of building a 21st century economy and building the 21st century public schools that can drive it. It is the challenge of our time, and how well we meet it will define the state of our city for generations to come. So today, I’d like to share with you the new strategies we will adopt in 2012 to meet that challenge, and they all center on making our schools, our economy and our government the most innovative in the world.

“Let’s start with our schools. The education reforms we’ve pioneered over the past decade – no matter what the naysayers say – have been widely adopted by school systems across the nation, but this year we’ll be putting our foot on the gas and picking up the pace.

“Because we have to be honest with ourselves: we have only climbed halfway up the mountain, and halfway isn’t good enough. We want all of our children to see the view from the top, to see the world of possibilities that stretch out before them.

“Now, getting there won’t be easy. The climb gets steeper the higher you go. But we cannot allow fear of what lies ahead to stop us, we cannot allow obstacles to slow us down, and we cannot allow those who prefer the comforts of the base camp to the exhilaration of the summit to hold us back. We have to charge ahead. Our children deserve to make it to the top of the mountain. And we owe it to them to help guide them there. Today, with Chancellor Dennis Walcott leading the way, we are setting off for the summit, a summit that no other big city in America has ever reached.  But if any city can, it’s New York City.

“The course we are charting involves five main steps – and let me briefly outline each.

“Step number one: since the single most important factor in a student’s progress is the effectiveness of the classroom teacher we are going to find new ways to attract, reward and retain great teachers.

“We already have thousands of great teachers – some of the best in the world. And I have enormous respect for the extraordinary personal investments they make in their students. Over the past ten years, we’ve worked hard to invest in them – by expanding professional development and raising their base salaries by 43 percent. A teacher hired in 2002 at a starting salary of $31,000 can now make $78,000, similar to what their peers in the suburbs make.

“This year, we’ll do more to attract great new teachers by helping them with their college loans. The burden of paying back college loans can sometimes lead top-level students to cross teaching off their list of possible careers. But we need their talents in our classrooms. Our kids need them.

“And so we are proposing to create an incentive to anyone who finishes college in the top tier of the class: come teach in our schools, and if you commit to stay, we’ll pay off up to $25,000 of your student loans. Our teachers deserve that, and so do our children.

“The marketplace keeps showing us that we have to be competitive if we’re going to attract the best and as everyone knows college loans have become a major issue for our young people. We expect the UFT will support the Department of Education in this effort. But if not, there are other ways to achieve it through the private sector. One way or another, we will attract those talented teachers.

“We’ll also work to retain the best teachers – by offering them a big raise. Today, we’re making an offer to all New York City teachers: If you are rated highly effective for two consecutive years we will hike your salary by $20,000 per year.

“Historically, teachers unions around the country have opposed rewarding great teaching through merit pay, but more and more teachers are asking why, and we’ve seen how well this can work in other cities. A recent article in the New York Times explained how cities with merit pay have found that rewarding great teachers keeps them from leaving the system. Again, our teachers deserve that. And so do our children.

“With an evaluation system now required by law, rewarding great teaching is an idea whose time has come. We hope the UFT will join us in this effort, because it’s the right thing to do for our schools and our teachers. Their excellence deserves to be rewarded and compensated.

“Now, how do we determine which teachers are highly effective?

“Well, that brings us to step number two in our journey to the mountaintop. And here again, we’re building on the work we’ve already done. Two years ago, we directed principals to adopt a more rigorous tenure evaluation system. It used to be that 97 percent of teachers got tenure as a matter of course. Many of them deserved it. But others did not. Tenure should be something that is earned – not automatically granted.

“And now, that is exactly what’s happening. Principals decide who should and should not get tenure with the school superintendent signing off.

“Last June, the percentage of teachers receiving tenure dropped from almost everyone receiving it – 97 percent, to about half who received it – 57 percent. That doesn’t mean the rest won’t earn it someday – we hope most will. We have a big investment in them. But we are raising the bar for teachers, just as we are for students.

“This year, we’ll do more to make sure every classroom has an effective teacher –

and to remove those who don’t make the grade.

“Unfortunately, for all the changes we’ve made in our schools, evaluating teachers is one area where nothing has changed. Teachers continue to be rated simply as ‘satisfactory’ or ‘unsatisfactory.’ It’s a pass/fail system – with a 98 percent passing rate. Our students don’t have the luxury of being graded pass/fail. Neither do people in other professions, who have to make a living to feed their families. And neither should our teachers.

“The debate over teacher evaluations began when the Obama Administration rightly made them part of the Race to the Top grant competition. To qualify for the money, the State passed a law requiring districts to adopt teacher evaluation systems, but gave the unions veto authority. As Governor Cuomo recently said, the law hasn’t worked. Like many other districts around the state, we are at an impasse.

“And let’s be clear about what the stakes are: A recent study by Harvard and Columbia economists found that students with effective teachers are less likely to become pregnant, more likely to go to college and more likely to get higher-paying jobs. Nick Kristof has a column about it in today’s Times and I encourage everyone to read it. Great teachers make an enormous difference and ineffective teachers are hurting our students’ futures – we can’t allow that.

“We need to be able to identify those ineffective teachers and give them the support they need to grow. And if that doesn’t work, we need to be able move them out.

“A real evaluation system that is based on measurable improvement in student performance and principal assessment and allows us to make real changes is the only way we can do that.

“We have a model that works well in deciding tenure – and this should be exactly the same process. But when we tried to get approval for such a system for just 33 struggling schools – 33 out of 1,700 – the UFT insisted on provisions that would make it even harder to remove ineffective teachers. Not easier, but harder. As a result, those 33 schools lost $58 million in School Improvement Grants from the State. And if nothing changes, it could cost students in every borough hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Race to the Top funds.

“Well, I can tell you this: We’re not going to accept that. We’re not going to wait around while ineffective teachers remain in those schools.

“Under a school turnaround program already authorized by Federal and State law and consistent with a provision of the existing union contract, the City can form school-based committees to evaluate teachers on merit and replace up to 50 percent of the faculty.

“Under this process, the best teachers stay; the least effective go. And now, that is exactly what will happen.

“We plan to move forward with this approach for the 33 schools that should’ve gotten state grants. We believe that when we take this action, we will have fulfilled the State’s requirements and the schools will be eligible for the $58 million in funding.

“But this is about much more than the money. The students in those 33 schools deserve effective teachers. And so does every student in every school. Our 1.1 million school children can’t afford to wait. There is too much at stake.

“They are counting on us – and we will not let them down.

“Now, step number three in our journey involves continuing to give parents even more top-quality school choices.

“The four new schools here at the Morris campus are among the 500 new schools we’ve created over the past decade, including 139 new charter schools. This year, we’ll phase out another 25 schools and open smaller schools in the same buildings.

“All told, our goal is to open 100 new schools over the next two years – including 50 new charters. And we’ll do that by asking our most successful charter school operators to expedite their expansion plans, including the KIPP Academy and Success Academy networks.

“We’ll also begin recruiting high-performing charter school operators who have yet to come to New York. And I’m glad to announce today that one of the most successful, Rocketship, has just committed to opening schools here.

“Step number four in our journey will prepare students for what awaits them at the top: college and careers.

“Today, far too many of our graduates are leaving without the skills they need to succeed beyond high school. Not every student wants to go to college, nor is college right for everyone. But all students should leave prepared to succeed in the next phase of their lives.

“Over the past year, we’ve worked with the State to re-align the Regents exams with college readiness standards, and that will happen in the years ahead. But our students cannot wait.

“In the weeks ahead, we will make every public school student complete new study lessons and assignments in both Math and Literacy that involve the kind of critical thinking skills that are aligned to college readiness standard and we will share the results of their work with parents at parent-teacher conferences this March.

“We’ll also begin doing intensive college and career readiness work with 40 additional high schools as part of our Young Men’s Initiative. And the Department of Education will continue forming partnerships that expose our students to exciting career pathways.

“For instance, last September, we opened an innovative new school in partnership with IBM that focuses on computer science. It’s a six-year high school – grades 9 through 14, that’s right: 14 – so students graduate with a Regents degree and an associate’s degree and they also get a place in line for a job at IBM.

“It’s a new way of thinking about secondary school based on today’s economic realities.

“And now, thanks to support from CUNY, we plan to open three more schools using this same model including one right here in the Bronx. In addition, with support from venture capitalist Fred Wilson, this September we’ll open a Software Engineering Academy, the brainchild of one of our own teachers – Mike Zamansky from Stuyvesant High School. We’re honored to have both Fred and Mike with us today.

“The new school will be located in Union Square – home to a growing tech community that includes companies like Yelp and General Assembly. Those are the kinds of companies we want our students to work for, or to start.

“And to encourage the next generation of entrepreneurs in every field, we’ve launched a pilot program for 2,200 students who are developing business plans with other students around the world.

“Over the next two years, we’ll open at least a dozen new Career and Technical Education schools and programs aligned with trends in the global economy. Students will get out-of-school internships tailored around their coursework and interests. Now to do this, we need more private sector partners.

“In recent weeks, many of our city’s leading corporate citizens have joined a new mentoring program for high school students called i-Mentor. It’s part of our innovative new effort with NYC Service to reduce school truancy.

“And now, I am issuing a second challenge to them – and to the leaders of our hospitals, hotels, nonprofits and small businesses of every kind, including our growing tech community: join us in this new effort to connect high school students to career paths. One of the companies that has already agreed to participate, I’m proud to say, is Bloomberg LP.

“I can tell you from personal experience how much an internship means. When I was in high school, I was lucky enough to get a job working at an electronics company. That job is the only reason I applied to Johns Hopkins University – and without it, I’m not sure where I’d be today.

“The fifth and final step of our journey to the educational mountaintop is making sure that when our children are ready to continue their education or training, they can afford to do it. This year, under a new partnership with the Obama Administration, we’ll be informed about which of our students hoping to attend college failed to apply for Federal financial aid – and we’ll help make sure they get their applications in.

“We’ll also help lead the charge for the New York State Dream Act, so children who were brought here illegally can apply for State-sponsored college loans, grants, and scholarships. We can’t blame them for being brought here as infants or teens. And since they are here to stay, it’s in New York City’s best interest to make sure they are able to become productive members of society.

“I took out loans to get through college, so I know how important that money is. And I believe that all of our students should be eligible for the financial aid they need to succeed. The five steps I just outlined aren’t about politics. They’re about children.

“When we sit down with the UFT, there are two groups in the room: the UFT and our school children – they are who we work for and we will. We have an obligation to stand up for their lives, their futures, their hopes and dreams. Their voice is the voice we listen to and I thought all of us should hear it today.

“Those are the leaders of tomorrow: the doctors, the lawyers, the mayors. They will lead the economy of tomorrow, if we give them the tools to do it and if we begin building that economy right here and now.

“That’s the second major challenge I’d like to address: making our economy a global capital of innovation for the 21st century. Last month, we took a big step toward re-defining our economic future by forming a historic partnership with Cornell University and The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology to build a new science and engineering campus on Roosevelt Island.

“Building the new campus will generate up to 20,000 construction jobs and 8,000 permanent jobs, not just for PhDs, but for building staff and office workers. Cornell and Technion will also create educational programs for 10,000 New York City students and 200 teachers annually – a partnership that will begin this fall.

“It’s going to be a transformative project – and today, we’re glad to be joined by the Dean of Computing and Information Science at Cornell, Daniel Huttenlocher and the Director General of the Technion, Dr. Avital Stein. As we work to create the jobs of tomorrow, we’ll also plan for and create the space that the companies of tomorrow will need to grow.

“In Lower Manhattan, we’ll work with Pat Foye and David Samson at the Port Authority to keep progress going on the new towers at the World Trade Center. On the far West Side, we’ll work with Related to continue bringing new jobs and housing. And we’ll complete the Signature Theater’s new home on 42nd Street.

“In the area around Grand Central, we’ll work with the City Council on a package of regulatory changes and incentives that will attract new investment, new companies and new jobs. To expand space for film and digital media companies, we’ll open a new incubator that will help us build on last year’s record success in film and television and continue to compete with Hollywood for post-production business.

“And we’ll launch a new non-profit called ‘Space Works’ that will create long-term affordable rehearsal and studio space for artists citywide, including on Governors Island.

“As we plan for future growth, we’ll also create the jobs New Yorkers need today.

“Here in the Bronx, the first wave of 2,000 construction workers will break ground on New York’s next great shopping destination: Eastchester’s $270 million ‘Mall at Bay Plaza.’ In Port Morris, Smith Electric Vehicles will open its first East Coast plant and more than 100 New Yorkers will go to work assembling zero-emission trucks and vans.

“A new supermarket, stores, offices and a new charter school will bring 200 new jobs to a long-vacant spot at the Bronx Hub on 149th Street. We’ll begin renovation work on the Bronx River Art Center, creating a new media center, photography studio and gallery.

“We’ll begin re-zoning East Fordham Road to allow for more private sector investment and explore economic development possibilities on Webster Avenue. To do that, we’re working with a group of neighbors we call the Bronx Quad: the New York Botanical Garden, the Bronx Zoo, Montefiore Medical Center and of course, the emerging basketball powerhouse, Fordham University.

“We’re also stepping up efforts to keep some 3,600 good-paying jobs where they belong – at the Hunts Point produce market. New Jersey is making a big pitch to lure the market away, but we’re fully committed to modernizing the market and keeping those jobs here.

“So today, in partnership with Council Speaker Christine Quinn, we’re adding another $25 million to what will now be the City’s $87 million commitment to re-building the market. And that’s not the only big news here in the Bronx.

“We’re also launching a new effort to bring jobs to the most talked-about empty building in the Bronx: The Kingsbridge Armory.

“In collaboration with Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., today, we are releasing a Request for Proposals for a new operator of the Armory. We’re putting aside our differences to do what’s best for the city. That’s what leadership is about. It’s not about a series of running arguments – it’s about getting things done.

“We’ve heard from a variety of interested parties, including those who want to develop it into recreational space. And we’re hopeful that the Kingsbridge Armory, vacant for some 15 years, will soon be transformed into a place that benefits the community and employs community members.

“In every borough in 2012, we’ll bring new jobs on line and make investments that will attract more visitors.

“In Queens, Jet Blue will open its new headquarters in Long Island City and an expansion of the Queens Museum of Art will double its size. On Staten Island, we’ll create a new blue-collar-friendly industrial business zone, we’ll redesign the zoo’s aquarium, and we’ll help break ground on a major apartment and retail development at the Homeport, creating more than 1,100 construction jobs.

“In Brooklyn, more good blue-collar jobs will come to the waterfront both in Sunset Park and at the Navy Yard. We’ll bring new jobs to Coney Island, with new rides and attractions. And we’ll open the new Barclays Center at Atlantic Yards – bringing big league sports back to the borough where they belong.

“These new attractions will also help bring even more tourists to our city – and last year we hit a record 50 million, but we can do even better.

“There are countless foreign tourists who seek to come to our city only to find it painfully difficult to secure a visa. That pain is not only hurting them – it is hurting us by costing us jobs. At a time when so many people are out of work, that’s just unacceptable.

“This year, we’ll work with Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to make it easier to get tourist visas, especially for those coming from growing markets like India, China and Brazil. Millions of people from around the world want to come here and spend money in our hotels, restaurants, stores and attractions. We shouldn’t stand in their way.

“Now, as we create these new jobs, we’ll also do more to help New Yorkers fill them. Last year, the City’s Workforce One Career Centers made a record 35,000 job placements. This year, we’ll help even more New Yorkers find work with four new Workforce One Centers, in all three public library systems.

“We’ll help more immigrants who are skilled professionals obtain the licenses and certifications they need to find work here in the city. We’ll create a new incubator that will offer foreign entrepreneurs the tools and legal support they need to develop their businesses here. And we’ll increase opportunity for the City’s minority- and women-owned businesses, so that those firms compete for and win more City contracts.

“Most important of all, we’re going to mount a major new effort to help the New Yorkers who’ve defended our nation’s freedoms find the jobs and housing they deserve.

“Today, there are some 9,000 unemployed veterans in our city. There’s no excuse for that. And that’s why this year, with the help of the Robin Hood Foundation, our Workforce One Centers will offer new services to connect veterans to jobs.

“We’ll also work with a property manager called Urban American to attract more private landlords to the rental discount programs they run for returning veterans. Our men and women in uniform have stood up for our country. Now it’s our duty to stand up for them.

“The cost of housing is something many New Yorkers struggle with. Since the national recession hit in 2007, the cost of living in New York City – like nearly everywhere else – has gone up. And not just housing, but food, transit and all the key parts of a family’s budget. But there’s one thing that in all fairness hasn’t gone up: the ability of those at the bottom of the economic ladder to pay for those essential needs.

“In America, we want people to work – to set the alarm clock and punch the time clock. That’s why we incentivize work through programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit. You work, we help.

“The minimum wage is another way to help those who can only find jobs with entry-level wages by incentivize and reward work. Like the EITC, it helps those who are trying to help themselves. But setting the minimum wage is also a balancing act – setting it high enough so people can get by on it without having a negative economic impact.

“Right now, I believe, we are slightly out of balance. The genius of the free market is not always perfect. Two of our neighbors – Connecticut and Massachusetts – have raised their minimum wage above the Federal standard to address higher costs of living.

“And so while we would prefer the Federal government to act to keep us competitive, this year, we will join Speaker Shelly Silver in pushing for a responsible raise in the minimum wage.

“Our city just cannot afford to wait for Washington. Not when it comes to illegal guns, not when it comes to climate change, not when it comes to creating jobs and not when it comes to raising the minimum wage.

“Now, some economic studies have shown that raising the minimum wage can reduce youth employment. And so we’ll work to counter-act that by continuing to increase our Summer Youth Employment opportunities. And to really drive at the heart of the unemployment problem, we’ll go to the neighborhoods where the problem is worst, like here in the South Bronx, and in Central Brooklyn.

“We’ll launch a new effort to mobilize businesses, community groups, non-profits and City agencies to create new job opportunities in these communities. For instance, in partnership with the Young Men’s Initiative, we’ll develop opportunities for New Yorkers to ‘earn while they learn’ the skills required by the knowledge economy. We’ll also create incubators specifically to help low-income entrepreneurs get off the ground.

“If we can succeed in raising employment in the most distressed neighborhoods – and I believe we can – then we can not only improve people’s lives, we can not only improve the safety and stability of those neighborhoods, we can build on the work of the Center for Economic Opportunity in helping the next generation of residents break the cycle of poverty that has plagued those communities for too long.

“If ever there was a community that knows how powerful targeted city investments can be, it’s where we are today, the South Bronx.

“This area was once so burned out and abandoned that it was compared to Dresden after World War II. Today, the South Bronx is a poster child for urban revitalization, and one of the people who really deserves enormous credit for that is with us today: Mayor Ed Koch. Thank you, Ed.

“Mayor Koch showed that investment in affordable housing is a key element of a successful economic development agenda. Over the past decade, we’ve created or preserved 30,000 units of affordable housing here in the South Bronx alone and more than 150,000 units across the city.

“This year, we’ll take steps to bring more affordable housing to the Lower East Side around Delancey Street to a site that has sat largely vacant for a half-century. We’ll begin building new affordable housing and retail space on Livonia Avenue in East New York, at Hunter’s Point South in Queens, at Randolph Houses in Central Harlem and across the entire NYCHA system, we will significantly reduce the backlog of repairs that has resulted from sustained Federal budget cuts. This is a key part of our strategic plan to improve services to NYCHA’s residents and preserve public housing for generations to come.

“A NYCHA community will also be the site of one of our newest waterfront reclamation projects. Using land that now lies mostly vacant, we’ll begin working to create 2,300 units of housing, a waterfront park and a supermarket next door to the Astoria Houses on the East River.

“All across the city, we’ll continue reclaiming and revitalizing our waterfront. We’ll open Rockaway Park in Queens. We’ll complete the reconstruction of McCarren Pool in Williamsburg, and the first phase of Calvert Vaux Park in Bensonhurst and we’ll transform Pier 5 of Brooklyn Bridge Park into soccer fields and open space.

“Here in the South Bronx, we’ll begin construction of Soundview Park. And out in the harbor, we’ll continue transforming the island that time passed by, with 30 new acres of parkland that will make Governors Island one of the great waterfront destinations in the world.

“And across the city, we’ll join with AT&T to bring Wi-Fi service to a dozen city parks – so even if you’re enjoying a beautiful day, you can still work or study or play ‘Words with Friends.’

“Reclaiming the waterfront and wiring our parks are just two of the ways we’re re-orienting our city around the needs of people today, not the needs of people 30 years ago. And that brings us to the third and final major challenge I’d like to address: making our government the most innovative of any in the world.

“By creating an administration that empowers team members, takes risks and leads from the front, we’re already setting the standard in so many areas.

“When people around the world talk about the most innovative public policies, where the most cutting-edge policies and programs are taking shape, they talk about New York City. And in the year ahead, we’ll give them plenty more to talk about.

“To begin, we’ll continue using technology to keep our city safe. The NYPD’s counter-terrorism program will add more than 1,000 advanced cameras to sensitive areas deploy more License Plate Readers to bridges and tunnels and expand the use of radiation detectors that are wired to the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, which can respond immediately to any questionable readings.

“Our first responders will begin sending real-time information over the city’s wireless network from an ambulance to an emergency room, saving precious seconds and likely saving lives.

“We’ll strongly support the Governor’s push to expand DNA collection, which will build on the 2006 law we helped pass. And we’ll launch a data analytics team that will use the latest technology to fight crime and poverty and to assist businesses and entrepreneurs.

“To get more people working on construction sites, we’ll streamline the inspection process, just as we’ve done for restaurants and retail shops, in partnership with Speaker Quinn. We’ve already opened an online hub for reviewing and approving digital construction plans. Now, we’re teaming up with the industry to form the Partnership to Build NYC, and together, we’ll strengthen safety and reduce waiting times for building inspections citywide.

“Our goal is ten days or less – and we’re not talking about cutting corners, we’re talking about cutting red tape. And we’ll also do that by streamlining City Planning’s review of land use applications. City government will get smarter so more New Yorkers can get to work.

“We’ll also make our city smarter and safer by deploying Traffic Enforcement Agents to safety hot spots at key intersections, doubling the number of 20 mile-per-hour zones for schools, and continuing adding more miles of protected bike lanes.

“Now, I realize the debate over bike lanes has sometimes been hot and heavy. But the reality is more and more New Yorkers are biking, and the more bike lanes we put in, the fewer deaths and serious injuries we have on our streets.

“This year, we’ll take steps to enforce the law requiring every delivery rider to have proper safety equipment and clothing that identifies the name of the business. At the same time, we’ll launch the largest bike share program of any city in the country. Those bikes will create another option for getting around town faster and easier, and so will new Select Bus Service in Brooklyn, which we’ll launch in partnership with MTA Chairman Joe Lhota.

“And, of course, another options will be the new Five Borough Taxi Cab that New Yorkers have been waiting decades for.

“Finally, if we’re going to be the most innovative city in the world, we also have to be the greenest, because that’s how you attract the most forward-looking individuals and companies. So today, we’re announcing the next phase in three key areas of our PlaNYC environmental and infrastructure agenda: recycling, clean energy and clean air.

“To begin, we’ll double the amount of residential waste we divert from landfills by 2017. By taking steps like increasing recycling in schools and streets and expanding our plastics recycling program, we’ll reduce our waste disposal costs by $50 million annually and help protect the environment.

“We’ll also become one of the first cities in the country to turn wastewater into renewable energy and we’ll explore the possibility of cleanly converting trash into renewable energy. To attack air pollution, we’ll overhaul the city’s air quality codes, green our building and zoning codes and accelerate our work with property owners to phase-out dirty heating oils. All of this work will help move us closer to our goal of having the cleanest air of any large city in America.

“Now, as ambitious as our agenda is for the year ahead, we’ll achieve it by continuing to do more with less. When I first took office, city government had 312,000 employees. Today we have 292,000 – a six percent cut. Yet in nearly every category, we are getting far better results than we did ten years ago.

“This year we will continue to keep head count down – but we will not sacrifice public safety or public integrity. We don’t tolerate misconduct or corruption anywhere, and we have the very highest standards for those we entrust to enforce the law. Our police force is the best in the world. And Commissioner Kelly has done an outstanding job making sure that New York’s Finest are also the most upstanding.

“To ensure that we maintain and strengthen that track record, we will increase the attorney staffing for the Commission to Combat Police Corruption, led by its chair Michael Armstrong, former counsel to the Knapp Commission.

“We’ll find ways to finance all of the initiatives I’ve outlined today, some of which come with very little cost, by continuing to make government more efficient and continuing to consolidate city operations.

“For instance, this year we’ll put three city-owned office buildings in Lower Manhattan up for sale. We expect will bring more than $100 million next year for our capital budget, $100 million in private sector tax revenue and cost savings over the next 20 years by converting public buildings to private buildings and it will bring new jobs and housing for the downtown community.

“We’ll also seek budget savings by doing everything we can to support Governor Cuomo in his push for mandate relief, including what has long been one of our top priorities: pension reform.

“New York City’s workforce is the finest in the world, and current city workers have earned their pensions. But we cannot afford to continue offering the same benefits to future workers. Right now, more than 12 percent of our budget is dedicated to pensions. That’s more than $8 billion that we’re not using to reduce our tax burden or to spend on salaries for teachers, police officers and firefighter, or on job creation or social services. Governor Cuomo is right to make pension reform a top priority and he’ll have our full support.

“It won’t be easy. None of this will be easy. But everything that I’ve talked about today we can complete or make meaningful progress on this year. We’ll work collaboratively with our partners in City government and in Albany to achieve great things – and pioneer new innovations. And that’s the way it should be.

“Because this is a city where the line between the possible and impossible is routinely erased, and where the arc of human fate is bent by ambition, ingenuity, and hard work. That has always been true here, but it has never been truer than it is today.

“The sense of possibility that leads us to pursue big dreams and high ideals, that is the essential spirit of our city and we see it every day.

“We see it in the immigrants who continue to come here and stay here to build a better life. We see it in the artists and entrepreneurs who spend every waking hour pursuing their passions. We see it in the parents who work like mad to give their children a better life.

“This spirit of promise and possibility is all around us – today, and every day. It’s in people like Christopher Gallant and Damian Brown, who founded the Bronx Brewery and now employs many people.

“It’s in educators like Joe Negron and David Levin of KIPP Academy, one of the country’s most successful charter schools, just 10 blocks south of here.

“It’s in housing leaders like Jonathan Rose and Adam Weinstein who helped build one the most environmentally advanced affordable housing developments in the nation, called Via Verde, on East 156th Street.

“It’s in all the people all across the five boroughs who do so much to make this the greatest city in the world. You want to know the State of the City? This is the state of our city. Never more full of promise and possibility. Because, in the words of Gouverneur Morris, there is nothing we the people can’t do. There is no mountain we cannot climb, no summit we cannot reach, if we the people decide to do it.

“Today, let us commit to one another that we will not stand still when our children need us to step forward. We will not deny the dreams of students – no matter where they live, or where they go to school or in what country they were born.

“We will not deny the desire that so many have to work in jobs that will allow them to build a better life for themselves and their families.

“And we will not deny the demands that every New Yorker has for safe streets free from the plague of gun violence and strong neighborhoods full of energy and life.

“Together, we the people will build our future, and we will not rest – not for one second – until we have fulfilled the promise and possibility of our great city for every single New Yorker. Thank you.”

The best stories of the week from across the web on e-books and self publishing

1. Amazon: Time to start programming your e-books (CNET News)

2. Soon, e-books to let you flip pages like print magazines (Deccan Herald)

3. UK's first literary prize exclusively for e-books and digital publishing (Book Trade)

4. Amazon scoots past Apple's rules with HTML5 iPad Kindle store (paidContent)

5. 19 free e-books on journalism (Online Journalism Blog)

6. Amazon Kindle owners are "borrowing" nearly 300,000 electronic books a month (TechCrunch)

7. B&N offers free Nook with purchase of a 1-year Nook subscription to People or New York Times (mocoNews)

#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:500px;}
Sign up for our weekly E-Books and Self-Publishing newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Nathan Gibbs

1. The Philadelphia Experiment: Why a media company wants to be a tech incubator (Nieman Journalism Lab) 

2. The magical (and sometimes ridiculous) gadgets of tomorrow (The Wirecutter)

3. Inside the NYT's hyper-local efforts (Street Fight)

4. Disqus: People using pseudonyms post the highest-quality comments (Poynter)

5. How Google+ Hangouts could transform traditional TV broadcasting (Lost Remote)

6. Homeland Security watches Twitter, social media (Reuters)



7. Critics see 'disaster' in expansion of domain names (NPR)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

It's natural to imagine our computers as devices that have screens and some sort of keyboard input, real or virtual.

Those two design elements constrain the device's form factor because the screens need to be big enough for us to see and the keyboards must make room for our fingers or thumbs. But a number of technological hurdles are being overcome that will, in the coming year, dramatically alter the shape of our computing and communication devices. We are about to enter the world of wearable computing.

 

Before the end of 2012 many of us will be sporting bracelets, watches, fobs and other fashion doodads that will send us messages or convey data to our phones, computers and the Internet.

 

These devices already exist.

 

The rise of the wearable device

Apple's year-old iPod Nano is being worn as a watch. There are at least a half-dozen companies making watch straps specifically for it. The Nano is a touch-screen iPod, a radio, a Nike running monitor, a photo frame and, of course, a watch -- with 18 different fashion faces. Apple's already considering the next step.

The Up Band, a thin, colorful bracelet from Jambox, captures biometrics about your exercise and sleep patterns and, when you plug it into your computer, sends that data to the Internet so you can see and share your health data. The Fitbit, a pedometer updated for online, does the same sort of tracking, but attaches to your belt, not your wrist.

But these are just the early vanguard of wearable computers that will be much more powerful and versatile. That shift will be fueled by four major trends: improved short-range communication protocols, flexible screens, and better battery life and voice recognition.

Protocols first. A new Bluetooth standard, Bluetooth 4.0, is now being built into smartphones and upcoming wearables. Standard Bluetooth 2.0 is a wireless communications protocol that allows smartphones to "talk" to earpieces.
 

But Bluetooth 4.0 uses less power and allows devices to "pair" with each other almost instantly. That means that a smartphone in your pocket can share information with a watch or bracelet on your wrist. That information could be the text of an incoming SMS, email or alert. Or, it could just be a signal that makes the bracelet flash blue if you have a new message, green if you've received a new email, or red if you've gotten an important alert.

 

Or, you could sport earrings that subtly buzz on your earlobes to signal arriving missives.

 

Of course, it could also have more serious uses, conveying health-monitoring data from patients to their smartphones and on to their doctors via the web, for example.

 

The devices could also support Near Field Communication (NFC) protocol so that your watch or bracelet could act as a transit token or a movie ticket by touching it to a point-of-purchase pad, much the way the Presto card in Canada works now.

 

A smart bracelet is possible due to advances made in flexible screens -- often OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes) -- printed on a plastic backing. Such screens can arc along a circular bracelet. These screens display text, images and have a refresh rate high enough to show video. Cheaper e-ink screens (like those in Kindles and Kobo eReaders) have already been made of flexible backing and are being used to display color and monochrome data and images. It's easy to imagine an inexpensive bracelet that can, chameleon-like, alter its appearance based on sensors that detect a change in ambient temperature, surrounding colors or the vital signs of its wearer. Samsung is already working on flexible screens that will show up in wearable devices this year.

 

Of course, none of these wearables would work without power. Some, like watches or bracelets, could be powered by solar cells built as a layer of the display screen. Or, since the charging capacity of lithium-ion cells is improving dramatically and the Bluetooth 4.0 standard sips power, they could be powered by small, thin rechargeable cells.

Intelligent ears

Finally, these upcoming wearable computers can have intelligent ears. Siri, the speech-recognition technology now in iPhones, could power speech-recognizing earrings or watches. The wearable device, of course, would not do the speech-recognition work itself. It would just pass the captured speech to your smartphone via Bluetooth 4, then the phone would compress that audio data, send it to the Internet for Siri servers to decode, and then translate the text and send it as an SMS or email, sending a confirming alert back to your watch.
 

Why does this matter to us? Because these gadgets will become the next wave of communication devices, as different from tablets as tablets are from desktop computers. As journalists, we need to understand what's coming and ask important questions like -- how do you tell a story to a wristwatch?

Wayne MacPhail is a veteran journalist who now heads up w8nc inc., helping non-profit organizations, colleges and universities, charitable organizations and associations develop and implement technology-based, marketing driven communications strategies. MacPhail also teaches online journalism at the University of Western Ontario and Ryerson University. He serves on the board of rabble.ca where he founded the rabble podcast network and rabbletv. He's a tech columnist for the website.

This article was originally published on J-Source. J-Source and MediaShift have a content-sharing arrangement.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

A simple text message can have a big impact. Mobile giving makes it easy to donate almost instantaneously after disaster strikes -- users authorize a mobile donation by texting a keyword to a specific short code, and the donation is then billed to the donor's mobile phone bill, eventually ending up with the nonprofit of choice.

Following the devastating Haitian earthquake of 2010 that left more than 200,000 people dead and more than 1 million Haitians homeless, mobile donations to Haiti totaled more than $43 million -- the first time mobile giving went mainstream in the United States on a large scale.

On the two-year anniversary of the Haitian earthquake, the Pew Internet Project has released "Real Time Charitable Giving," a report that delves into mobile giving and donors' motivations in the U.S.

The report, a collaboration among the Pew Internet Project, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the Knight Foundation, and the mGive Foundation, aims to provide a window into the motivations, benefits, and potential pitfalls of mobile giving campaigns.

Drawn from a sample of 863 individuals who made a mobile donation to the "Text for Haiti" campaign, the survey covers why the users gave, how they learned about the mobile donation campaign, how likely they were to share information about their mobile donation, and how likely they were to remain engaged with relief efforts.

Key Findings

Many of the contributors to the Text for Haiti campaign were first-time mobile givers; 74% of the respondents said that the earthquake response was the first time they had used a mobile device for charitable giving. Many of the users went on to contribute to other relief efforts (such as the Japanese tsunami and the BP Gulf oil spill) through mobile donations, with 56% of the respondents saying they had continued to use mobile donations for other efforts.

Some of the key benefits of mobile giving are the ease of the transaction and the relatively small donation amounts, which make it an easy impulse decision; 73% of respondents donated the same day they heard about the campaign, and 50% of those users donated immediately upon hearing about it. The ease of mobile giving also encouraged the donors to spread the word about the campaign to their social groups; 43% of the surveyed mobile donors reported that they encouraged their friends and family to make mobile donations as well.

Unsurprisingly, the report found that mobile giving attracted a younger, more diverse, and more technologically savvy group of donors compared with the typical nonprofit donor. The majority of the respondents were also more familiar with the little computers in their pockets, using their phones in more ways than just texting or calling (such as taking photos, accessing the mobile web and social networking sites, sending and receiving emails, etc). Less than 40% of average U.S. mobile users use these features.

A downside to the mobile giving campaign was respondents' limited long-term engagement with relief efforts and news following their initial donations; 43% of participants reported that they were following the reconstruction efforts "not too closely," while 15% were following them "not at all." Furthermore, the impulse decision to make a mobile donation meant that there was minimal research into relief efforts before the donation, with only 14% of respondents saying they had researched where the money would go before making their mobile donation.

The spur-of-the-moment nature of mobile donations and the ease of the transaction make mobile giving an easy way to reach a large number of donors, despite the challenges.

Image courtesy of the United Nations Development Programme and used under the Creative Commons license.

A case of a man using his Metrocard to sell discounted rides to others makes it to the state's highest court. Emily Jane Goodman Explains what happened.

When we redesigned EveryBlock eight months ago, our goal was to put our users and neighborhood conversations front and center.

We wanted to help people improve their communities by connecting them with their neighbors. And now that 2011 has come to a close, we’re happy to say that's happened many times, with great results.

Of course, the new year just wouldn’t be complete without a list or a recap, so we thought it would be fun to highlight some of the top "be a better neighbor" discussions on EveryBlock:

Windy City Liquors
This post started with a simple question from ladykills82 about a local business and turned into a great example of how EveryBlock can be used to rally a community together. Neighbors shared information and ultimately started a fundraiser for the business owner, who had experienced a family tragedy.

Attracting Businesses to the Neighborhood
EveryBlock neighbor Erica had the right idea when she posed a question for her neighbors about what businesses they’d like to see in their historic neighborhood. Not only did the discussion lead to some interesting suggestions, but it became the starting point for real-world action when the participants gathered their ideas together and met with their city council representative.

Organizing a Neighborhood Clean-up
Nothing's worse than walking thorough your neighborhood and seeing a bunch of trash in empty lots. So when neighbor Seth suggested a clean-up in his community, plenty of folks were willing to lend a hand. They used EveryBlock to pick a date and time, organize who would bring snacks and water, and even share some impressive before-and-after shots.

Deteriorating Train Platforms
Despite a recent renovation, neighbors began to notice the platforms at their local train station were already starting to deteriorate. Neighbor Gretchen asked other residents for advice after failing to get an answer from several city contacts. Her message spurred an active neighborhood conversation and it helped the issue gain local media attention.

Who Wants to Start a Farmer's Market?
Not all neighborhoods are fortunate enough to have an active farmers market in the summer, but that doesn't mean they can't start one. Neighbor Jeff Parker posted a message asking residents if they were interested in bringing a market to their neighborhood and after lots of planning, coordination and hard work, the neighbors helped kickstart the first market in their community in more than ten years.

These were our favorites from 2011, but discussions like this happen pretty much every day across the neighborhoods we serve. To get a sense of hot discussions happening in your city, check out our top news page (Chicago example), which is updated in real time.

We hope you and your neighbors have a wonderful 2012, and here's to another year of great neighborhood discussions!

There are few things I love more than a brilliant parody. This spoof commercial, by commercial director Jesse Rosten, shows exactly why plastering media with unachievable ideals of feminine beauty hurt women. Which sounds like a really heavy point to make. But this is fun. That’s the art of really making a point.

Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

The best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Nathan Gibbs

1. Justice Alito: "It is not going to be long before [broadcast TV] goes the way of vinyl records and eight-track tapes" (New York Times)

2. Finding success through pay walls (Monday Note)

3. UK to reintroduce computer science teaching in schools (Geek) 

4. Patch triples traffic year-over-year, claims growth across network 'consistent' (Street Fight)

5. Piano Media wants national paywalls all over Europe (Nieman Journalism Lab)

6. Q&A with Nick Kristof on journalism in a digital world (Fast Company)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

One year ago, when we were just a team of graduate students with a big idea, our teammate Thejo Kote came to Hubli, India and demoed a web-based dashboard to the executive engineer and commissioner here. The dashboard uses Google Maps to show the status of valves and other system components in real time, using information provided via voice or SMS.

Building that dashboard marked a turning point for NextDrop, which informs residents in India about the availability of piped water in order to help them lead more productive, less stressful lives. It was our first real "pivot," as we moved decisively away from crowdsourcing information from residents, which wasn't working. It was also the way to make progress with the utility, partner with them, and ultimately, win competitions that would enable us to get our company off the ground.

Implementing that dashboard is part of the larger vision of how NextDrop can ultimately revolutionize information flow in water utilities. But based on what we've learned so far, it's not clear that it's the low-hanging fruit in terms of how to make the lives of engineers easier today.

In Hubli, utility engineers have the computers and Internet access you need to follow the days' supply cycle through a live dashboard, but they're not quite there yet in terms of integrating that technology into their day-to-day routines.

But there's a different technology they are using -- everyone in the utility has a mobile phone, and they are incredibly adept at handling calls from hundreds of people each day, as they do things as varied as managing valvemen, dealing with customer complaints, coordinating tanker deliveries, overseeing pipe damage repairs, and interfacing with other engineers.

a day in the life of an engineer

Last week, a team member and I went to the field with Mr. Santosh, one of the two section officers in Hubli's North Zone. While he was showing us the NR Betta Tank, we got to see first-hand the volume of calls he deals with.

Like all the engineers in the utility, Santosh's number is public, so even customers in his area can call him directly with complaints. Here are some notes from my interview with him.

I asked Santosh how many calls he gets, and this was his response:

• 30 to 40 calls per day from NR Betta Tank, the major reservoir tank he is responsible for, where he checks on the reservoir level and chlorine levels.
• 15 to 20 calls per day from his valvemen updating him on where they provided water.
• 20 calls per day from the public inquiring about new connections.
• 40 calls per day about tanker tuck deliveries.

While we're still learning a lot about the utility, we think the products that will make the lives of utility engineers easier today will have the following qualities:

• Reduce the volume of calls the engineers get.
• Provide them information through the mobile phone, the medium they already use.
• Generate clear electronic records that can be studied over time.

With this in mind, we're launching a daily SMS that will inform utility engineers whether water was delivered to all the areas they're responsible for, and notify them of any exceptions to the set schedule. Beyond that, we're looking at opportunities to help engineers track the status of pipe damage repairs and tanker deliveries.

More news on new utility products soon to follow!

A version of this post first appeared on the NextDrop blog.

At the Cyberspace Conference in London in November, Igor Shchegolev, the Russian minister of communications and mass media, referred to sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Earlier in 2011, after the phone-hacking scandal erupted in the U.K. and the level of criticism of the journalism profession soared, I started thinking about these three laws. Meanwhile, there is a daily deluge of excitement about data journalism - from Owni.eu to the Guardian, Telegraph and New York Times - and about hacking (enthusiasm for the white hat variety and frequent warnings about the black hat flavor).

Some sections of the media want, at least it may seem to some of us, a witch hunt against the rest for practices that have been long present in journalism, and British journalism in particular. Just this week, former editor of the Sun newspaper in Britain Kelvin McKenzie was giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry about events 20 years ago. Others want to drive so far toward data and ceaseless online information that some of us wonder what happened to the people we used to interview. And if you question either of those, you will be denounced as being part of the problem.

Obsess too much about the technology and you risk forgetting the human beings we report on, and the fact they can easily be trampled under the feet of hoards of reporters surging in their lust for immediate "information" without pause for second thought.

In an age in which "hacks and hackers" are merged into a confused space focused more on data than the people behind it, I want to see Asimov's laws rewritten.

Let me propose Three Laws for Journalists in the Digital World:

1. Digital systems must be designed to protect and ensure, to the fullest extent possible, personal data and its exchange and communication.

2. Journalists must pursue all stories deemed to be in the public interest, even where that may require challenging the security of digital systems.

3. Journalists must protect their sources as well as the innocent public to the same extent as the digital systems of the First Law, where it would otherwise render the impossibility of the Second Law.

The First Law

So-called "black hat" hackers, such as criminal gangs who attack companies for data on customers, obviously fall afoul of the First Law above. But the First Law also accommodates those hackers who deliberately challenge a system to ultimately make it safer.

The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario published in 2009 "The 7 Foundational Principles" of Privacy by Design, which included as No. 2: "Privacy as the Default Setting ... by ensuring that personal data are automatically protected in any given IT system or business practice. If an individual does nothing, their privacy still remains intact."

While it might be relatively straightforward for companies to protect private information, it is less so for society at large.

Michelle Govan, a lecturer in ethical hacking at Glasgow Caledonian University, teaches a course focusing on attacking systems to find the holes and then patching them. She explained that the key element of legal hacking is having the permission of the system owner or operator. For the rest of us, any information online is not private.

"Everybody has a responsibility for their own privacy," she said. "Where does privacy start? You create your own digital footprint online -- anything you put online is open to people using it maliciously.

"I always provide students with the understanding and experience of the application of legal aspects so they know they have to use these skills for good. It's all about the permission and knowledge of what limits the law sets," she added. "We have legal laws [and some] ethical laws -- it's down to a person's own values. You have to make people respect what they're doing."

There have been plenty of examples of going further with once private information as companies battle for control of as much data as possible.

Such was the recent case of Klout, which was accused of automatically creating profiles and assigning scores to minors. Klout argued that much of a user's information, such as name, sex and profile photo, is already public.

Newspaper or other media companies and their systems would also be governed by this First Law, either in protecting their own systems from criminal hacking, or their users who might be exposed to viruses or other online threats via news stories, etc.

The First Law does not exclude examples such as hackers diverting Internet connections when states crack down on civil liberties, such as in Syria. Because those hackers are ultimately aiming to protect individuals and not expose them to harm as they fight for greater democratic freedoms, they meet the requirements of the First Law.

The Second Law

One of the many flaws in the hacking of telephone voice-mail in the U.K. was that the actions were not in the public interest. There are legal precedents in the U.K. for how public interest is defined, but the behavior of celebrities would rarely fall within those categories, and certainly not when the press goes on a "fishing expedition" for scandal on any high-profile figure imaginable.

Hacking into the voice-mail of a murdered schoolgirl was not legal or ethical. But you could imagine a hypothetical case where if the police were not making adequate efforts to find the killer, or where Milly Dowler had been alive and police were not acting to help trace her; AND at the invitation of her parents, the press got involved and accessed her phone. But that is highly theoretical and was not the case.

If journalists must do investigations -- and there's a recognition we must, even if nobody knows how to pay for it -- then there will be instances where they do breach the security of digital systems.

They might need to prove, as an ethical hacker might, that a government or corporate system did not have sufficient protections of citizens' data.

The Second Law is relatively straightforward if you need to meet the standard of public interest first. There might still be legal challenges after publication, broadcast or posting online, but if you have to justify it internally first, that's a good start. Most reporters know and follow the Second Law intuitively.

The Third Law

The point of merger for these laws, and for the worlds of "hacks and hackers" is the Third Law.

Even if the hacking of telephone voice-mail wasn't illegal already in the U.K., a handful of reporters at the News of the World and potentially elsewhere were clearly not ethically protecting their sources. In that world, everyone is potentially fair game for worldwide exposure, on anything, however trivial.

Clare Harris, former editor of the Big Issue in Scotland magazine and now media and communications officer with the Scottish Refugee Council, said journalists and editors don't always think about the potential consequences to interviewees of their stories going online. While a refugee might be safe in the U.K., their family could still be at risk in the country of origin, where stories about human rights abuses could be easily accessed by government forces.

"We have to be really clear if we are putting someone forward for interview that it is likely to go on the web and go worldwide, because we are dealing with people who are very vulnerable," she explained.

"In some cases, people would be more happy to speak to newspapers about their situation if they knew their stories won't be online. No journalist has ever asked us if it is safe to put the story online," she said.

But for Harris, bigger questions still have to be asked: about the nature of sources and the boundaries for "private" and "public."

"What is a source now? Is it someone who has tweeted something? Is everything online fair game?" she asked.

Harris' comments are echoed in the Wall Street Journal coverage last year of a Supreme Court case involving questions of how GPS technology is used by police.

During oral arguments, Justice Samuel Alito said: "Maybe 10 years from now, 90% of the population will be using social networking sites, and they will have on average 500 friends, and they will have allowed their friends to monitor their location 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, through the use of their cell phones. What would the expectation of privacy be then?"

How technically difficult is it to protect sources in the digital age? Very.

Govan in Glasgow said information is so easy to extract now, that it can be eyebrow-raising for her students initially.

"If a reporter is trying to protect their sources online, it's limited when you can get Google to locate information for you," she said. "Google caches anything online so once online, it's essentially public. It becomes public data."

The need to look beyond data

Stephen Janis is an investigative reporter for Fox 45 in Baltimore and co-author of the book, "Why Do We Kill?" While data has become more important in journalism, Janis said he always tries to find the people at the heart of stories.

But the people you find also sometimes need protection. He said it is relatively easy to find people on Facebook, and the connections they have, which can expose who you're speaking to as a reporter.

"I've dealt with a lot of sources inside agencies who could get fired for speaking to me. We are all secretive about who our sources are. But my online social relationships could be used to ferret out some sources," he said.

So if it is so easy to get information about sources, what should reporters do?

Was WikiLeaks better at protecting its sources through military grade encryption on its "drop box"? Did they fail in protecting information of individuals contained within released documents when they published everything sans redaction?

Attempts by the Wall Street Journal and Al Jazeera to entice whistleblowers to traditional media instead of WikiLeaks have been criticized for failing to ensure anonymity or guarantee information would not be handed to law enforcement agencies.

If Twitter has been compelled to release information by the courts on its accounts, how should media organizations encourage the flow of information via social media? Does it require, at the very least, warnings in advance so individuals make an informed choice to contact media companies that can't protect them?

Or would the media be better to advise their readers and users to apply Tor software to protect their systems from tracking before sending information?

In the pursuit of faster information and more readers/consumers, we may have forgotten the need to protect our sources, and how easily we leave trails exposing them to risk.

Does retweeting a comment from the "Arab Spring" expose the originator, however anonymous, to risk? Do the images we take from Twitter accounts include GPS tags?

Quite apart from the immorality and illegality of hacking the voice-mail of a murdered schoolgirl in the U.K., how are we using technology as reporters?

If we can't protect our sources, how can our work possibly be in the public interest? If you fail to do the Third Law, you make the Second Law impossible.

Why Three Laws and Why Now?

These questions matter. In obsessing about all the journalism practices used in the U.K. for the past 20 or 30 years, and in the rush for immediacy and intimacy with the digital world, there needs to be an underpinning of something for journalism. Every reporter knows they must protect their sources, even if we have not articulated that well to our citizen counterparts.

T. S. Eliot wrote in "The Rock," Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? Data is fine. It can be beautiful and elegant and informative. But some data must be protected, and other data must be investigated. The drive to inform must have an ethical underpinning of some kind.

These three laws could be part of better guiding the professionals and those sources -- human or numeric -- with whom we interact.

Robot photo by Flickr user ra1000 and used here with Creative Commons license.

Tristan Stewart-Robertson is a Canadian freelance reporter based in Glasgow, Scotland, operating as the W5 Press Agency.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Varsha has been working as a Community Correspondent for one and a half year. She talks about the changes her work has brought to her life and to her community.

“When I am speaking for the dalit, I am a dalit activist. When I am speaking for sexual minorities and women, I am a gender activist. When I’m reporting a gross violation of human rights, I am a human rights activist. And when I have a camera in my hand, I am a videoactivist.”

If ever the world started turning to the perfect harmonious tune of humanity, justice and equality, Varsha Jawalgekar hopes to become a poet and a painter. Until then she would prefer to dabble in the arts whenever she has the time and the inclination. Until then she has a lot on her mind.

Varsha is first and foremost an activist, the kind of relentless crusader for community and society who has decided to spend every living moment working for her fellow people. She has been associated with various people’s movements since the age of 14. She is now the leader of a people’s movement called ‘Parivartan Janandolan’ which she founded with the vision of organizing Dalit, Muslim and other women from marginalized communities and religions in the Vaishali district of Bihar to fight for and achieve their rights. It is her conduit to the grassroots of the nation, into the hearts and minds of her community and her people. This is where she belongs.

Varsha is part of a network of citizen journalists from across the country called IndiaUnheard, a hyperlocal news feature service which reports everyday from some of the most remote corners of the country. She is the Community Correspondent representing the communities in Vaishali district. In her hands, the camera becomes a tool for her activism. She uses it to document, archive and intervene in local issues.

In a recent incident, the damning footage that she captured of the corruption by a public distribution system official was used as evidence to get the official suspended. People who have suffered silently for years have opened up to her camera and Varsha has managed to share these powerful stories with the world. The videos give her access to a larger, global platform. Thousands of people across the world watch her videos. Her voice has bypassed and breached the narrow confines of the mainstream media and speaks out for some of society’s most disadvantaged individuals.

“My work as a grassroots activist and my work as a Community Correspondent are mutually inclusive,” says Varsha. “They are not in conflict which the other but each is tool and a step towards my ultimate vision of justice and equality.”

If Varsha rejects easy categories, she credits it to the life she has lived. Born in a middle class family in the Latur district of Maharashtra, she reckons that her activism was born early when the women in her house used ask her to help mediate their domestic issues. But it was the earthquake of 1993 which ravaged her district that shook her to the core. “It was an earthquake in mind,” she says. Barely 14, she volunteered as a humanitarian aid worker at ground zero and she was made responsible for the assessment of loss.

“It was a very sensitive time. I was meeting people who had lost almost everything they had lived for,” she recollects. “I worked among the community; I was studying and gradually understanding their loss. But at the time, I was witness to the corruption in the government. I understood the misery of being the underprivileged and I resolved that I would do something about it. It was a time of my social awakening.”

Varsha then joined a local people’s movement by the name of Bharath Gyan Vigyan Samuday which used a science based approach in dealing with issues of education, awareness and health among marginalized communities. All through her university years, Varsha describes herself as being in the constant process of participation and learning. She describes these years as the formative experience of her life, the time when she began to feel the call from within. Even after she completed her masters and became a lecturer she continued volunteering with NGOs and people’s movements until one day when she made the decision to forego her career as take the plunge into full-time activism.

She completed an 18 month course at the National Centre for Advocacy Studies and decided to travel across the country. During her travels, she found that Bihar beckoned. She loved the place and the people as much as she decided that her work was needed there.

“Bihar was the place where Buddha was born. It was a place of learning and ancient universities. Vaishali was the seat of the world’s oldest republic,” says Varsha. “But inspite of this culture and history of enlightenment, Bihar seemed to be moving steadily into the dark. It was poor and undeveloped. The caste system was rigid and there was little tolerance. The marginalized had no access to health, sanitation, education, justice and other basic amenities. The very land that they lived on was being snatched from beneath their feet. Worst of all, they had no voices. I realized that this must be the place where I have to do my work.”

She lived among the people. As a woman she had access to spaces that men couldn’t venture like the kitchen of a dalit woman. She stayed in the villages to weeks on end. She studied their issues first hand  and began to speak to the women about their rights. It was a gradual process but she stuck to her vision and a movement was born. In the process, Varsha found her community.

“The older people and the younger, the men and the women, all call me ‘didi’ (elder sister),” says Varsha “Every time I visit their villages, they say that didi has returned back to her ‘naiher’ (the matriarchal native place).”

When she looks back now, Varsha confesses to feeling a degree of surprise as to where she has reached in this one life but she credits every experience- good and bad, that helped her make the person that she is-an activist, a woman, a poet, a painter and everybody’s didi.

“I prefer the word ‘manvi’ to describe myself. It simply means a ‘human being’.”

The Long Tail

Last week, I wrote about how to succeed with B-list bloggers, but maybe some of you aren't convinced. So, this week, I want to draw an analogy to successful Google AdWords approaches so that you can see how to apply that same technique to blogger outreach. When it comes to reaching out to bloggers online, there's a lot you can learn from Google AdWords. Long-tail blogger outreach is like long-tail Google AdWords advertising. Instead of putting all your money on the top 10 most expensive and popular keywords that everyone bids on, smart advertisers segment their markets and hyper-target their highest-performing keywords with their most compelling ads and content while always pruning away their worst performers.

The same should be done with blogger outreach. There will always be blogs that are out of your league and your target audience. Instead of hitting your head against the wall by trying to make it onto TechCrunch and Mashable, learn to segment your blogger list, target more precisely while expanding your pool of bloggers past the top most blogs that tend also to be the most exclusive and difficult to break into — out of your league — to blogs and bloggers who are just starting out, who blog more from passion than ad revenue, and who are naturally more receptive to your content and your message based on a natural affinity.

Affiliate marketers have learned that they can reliably make money by spending money on Google AdWords by finding keyword phrases with such low bids that they can make money from the relatively small commissions or bounty they get from converting the click throughs to sales. Millions in yearly profits cent by cent, dollar by dollar. A cascade of small sales made by people who were so well targeted to that they were almost powerless to resist.

If you're able to find yourself thousands of bloggers who have yet to be discovered by your all your competitors, you'll be able to secure hundreds of earned media mentions.

The same thing can be done with blogger outreach. If you're able to find yourself thousands of bloggers who have yet to be discovered by your all your competitors, you'll be able to secure hundreds of earned media mentions. In concert, hundreds of earned media mentions both drown out a single post on TechCrunch and also do a better job or finding what you really want: sales.

All the most successful AdWords gurus, such as Adam Viener of imwave, realize that you can only make money in affiliate marketing with Google AdWords if you can make more money from your converted sales than you spend. You can't do this unless you find the magic sweet spot where there aren't many competing bidders who are bidding up the price of your keyword phrases so that you can both keep your spending low and also increase the likelihood that those who do stumble upon your ad will not only click through, costing you money, but also make a trackable major purchase, resulting in a commission--in commissions--that cover the costs of the ads and then some. This is not easy and the field fluctuates.

It takes expertise and vigilance, Adam tells me, and a mistake can be costly. One possibly apocryphal story reported that there was a very profitable keyword phrase that suddenly also became popular and the bids shot up without someone noticing, resulting in the equivalent of a Range Rover being lost in one day. Because of such high risks tantamount to the stock market, these folks are very good at discovering and milking the long tail, realizing that making a little bit here and there spread concurrently over hundreds and thousands of ads and keywords is more profitable, long term, than making a single big score.

If you're loaded with cash and don't really care about extracting value from your campaign, you can spend all your money on trying to get your ad copy at the top of every Google Search just to see it there but being constantly outbid by others, ultimately clearing out your budget or maxing your credit card; the same can be said with regards to blogger outreach: you can spend all your budgeted time and money pursuing the top bloggers while constantly being blocked by content from bigger, sexier, richer, more impressive national and global brands that have exclusive content and truckloads of valuable review products, better assets, and a promise of more and better traffic resulting in higher advertising revenue.

The most obvious thing you can learn is how easily it is to get outbid. Another thing you'll learn is that AdWords can rapidly burn all your cash with nothing to show for it. Finally, you'll learn that Google doesn't wage a fair fight — they both play favorites as well as giving preference to quality of ad over quantity of bid.

What this means in Google AdWords ads is that you're rewarded for the following: 1) Having lots of cash: a fool and his money are soon parted 2) Finding new markets: Being willing to hunt out holes in the market — keyword combinations that are not so obvious but are hyper-targeted to appeal to a new segment of visitors, bringing new opportunities for Google to make money 3) Creating an irresistible ad: no matter how much money you're willing to spend, Google doesn't make money unless visitors are compelled to click through 4) Becoming a long-term client: there are many cases where no amount or money and wit will claim you the top ad position on Google search, inline with organic search, because that spot almost always goes to the client who has made Google the most money, historically, over time.

These lessons map perfectly to blogger outreach.

The blogosphere rewards specialization and laser-targeting

The most desired, desirable, and "easy" keywords are like the top bloggers with the highest Alltop rankings and Klout scores are constantly being pursued. How realistic are you that you can even compete with all the others vying for their time and copy? If you're Dell or Sony, you probably have the sort of brand recognition and respect to be able to get a blogger to schedule time to review your new gizmo pretty thoroughly. You'll probably also have the sort of marketing budget that would allow you to offer a review product to everyone you engage.

You'll probably have a graphic design department and a staff of copywriters who can develop an amusing and compelling pitch which could include press junkets and personal meet and greets. Finally, a company like Dell is able to commit the long-term time, staff, and expense account towards making sure their communications team developed and professional as well as personal relationship with as many online influencers and online journalists over time — to use Google AdWords parlance, they have learned how to appeal to Google on all levels.

How many levels are you able to compete on? If you're unable to compete on any of these levels, you'll go bankrupt trying. It's not that A-List tech bloggers are corrupt, it's just that they're under pressure as well. They have only 24-hours/day and they're heavily rewarded with traffic when they're able to get exclusive content from a national player such as Dell. In the same way that Google AdWords rewards its clients for trying harder and digging deeper into the "long tail" in order to find new, under-served, markets, the blogosphere also rewards specialization and laser-targeting.

In a perfect world, one should only spend one's AdWords budget on keywords phrases that display ads only to people who will convert into clients and customers. The better one knows one's market and customer and the more time one spends finding out who and where they are and engaging them there, the more value you can extract from your sweat and cash.

Let's say you're preparing to launch your new book online and you want to use bloggers as an essential distribution channel, both great ideas. However, let's think this through. Are you internationally famous crime fiction writer James Ellroy or are you an unknown first-time, self-published, crime fiction-writer? Do you have a huge war chest to fuel your promotional campaign or are you running on sweat equity? Do you have thousands of friends online who are already committed to buying your book because you have been developing your popularity online by sharing chapters and answering questions and giving free advice or have you been busily scribbling your work on yellow pads and consider your work protected by strict copyright and not something to dilute by giving it away?

Novice Google AdWords users waste a lot of money with limited results when they start out because they don't understand how the competition works in contextual ad-buying: It's an auction. A complicated auction.

In short, the way it works is that every keyword combination, such as "social media marketing," competes with four things: the general popularity of the search, the quality of the keyword ad, the long-term success of the campaign, and how much money others are willing to bid for their ad based on their keyword choice, also dependent on their prior successes, ad spends, and long-term commitment. In shorter, while how much you're willing to bid for a keyword phrase is important, it isn't that simple.

With blogger outreach, you face the same odds as for paid search. If you are targeting only the top blogs, you'll face immense competition and can easily be outgunned by bigger foes. If you target the long tail of bloggers, you can more easily land your targets and will build up success one blog at a time, rather than in one fell swoop.Chris Abraham is a partner in Socialmedia.biz and co-founder and principal of Abraham Harrison LLC, an international consulting group with specialties in online word-of-mouth/conversation marketing and online business & technology strategy advising. See his profile, contact Chris via email, Twitter, or leave a comment below.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported.

We are no longer accepting applications.

A major part of Rising Voices' mission to support and nurture underrepresented communities so that they can begin to take full advantage of participatory digital media tools has been our microgrants for citizen media outreach projects. Since 2007, these small grants provide an opportunity for individuals, grassroots groups, networks, and other organizations without significant access to larger funding to be able to pass along knowledge by teaching others in their community in the use of these tools, as well as to provide ongoing support.

Rising Voices is pleased to announce the 2012 open call for microgrant proposals, and we are currently accepting project proposals for funding up to $4,000 USD for global projects.

Who is Eligible to Apply

This funding opportunity is open to private individuals, groups, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). We encourage partnerships between individuals and organizations. For example, if an NGO does not have experienced citizen media trainers on staff, it would be extremely important that it seeks collaboration with the local blogging community to find the right trainer(s) with the necessary skills. Individual applicants might also find it highly beneficial to partner with organizations from the communities they plan to serve in order to strengthen the project's impact and to have access to potential project participants.

There is no requirement for an organization to be legally registered, but we do require selected projects to have access to a bank account that is able to receive international bank transfers.

What Kind of Projects May be Funded

Rising Voices seeks project proposals that share our mission of bringing voices from new communities, as well as underrepresented language groups to the online global conversation through the use of participatory citizen media. The project's primary activities should be to provide citizen media training workshops to the target community, as well vital ongoing support and mentoring. Please see our roster of current and alumni grantee projects for examples of previously funded projects.

Examples of potential projects may include:

• Organizing a citizen media “boot camp” with experienced local bloggers to train and mentor participants from underrepresented communities that will result in a local network of support.
• Working with an indigenous community to teach and encourage new generations to begin to use Twitter to connect with others as a way to preserve and promote their native language online.
• Partnering with a local library with a computer to lab to invite community members to discuss local problems and solutions, and train them how to create a group blog to take these conversations to the wider community.
• Organizing a series of digital photography group walks where residents can document life in their community together and create an online Flickr photography exhibit.
• Teaching local residents to record and edit audio recordings on Audacity for a community podcast that can be uploaded online, as well as distributed to local radio stations for a wider reach.

Project ideas are not limited to these, and we encourage you to be creative, yet realistic in your proposals.

Application Process

Interested applicants should complete the online proposal application form (link here), which should also include a detailed budget. It is extremely important that applicants follow the word count guidelines for each of the questions.

If you would like to download the application questions to complete offline in order to upload later, please view or download the text document here (Google Doc format). However, all applications must be submitted online, and we cannot accept any additional attachments. Once you have submitted the application, you will see a confirmation screen like this. While we welcome and encourage projects from all corners of the global, all applications must be completed in English due to the common language of our selection committee.

• We are no longer accepting applications

Rising Voices outreach grants will range from $2,000-4,000 USD. Please be as thoughtful, specific, and realistic as possible when drafting your budgets. Applicants are encouraged to submit budgets for less than the maximum $4,000 USD as smaller grants allow us to fund more projects.

The application deadline is February 3rd, 2012 at 11:59 PM GMT (Please double check the time zone equivalent in your region). The proposals will be reviewed by a committee of Global Voices staff and volunteers, as well as members of previous Rising Voices grantees. We hope to be able to announce the grant recipients by February 28, 2012.

Expectations of Successful Grantees

Successful projects will be prominently featured on the Global Voices networks. Grantees will be required to sign a grant agreement, which will outline accounting, reporting, and other terms and conditions regarding how funds will be distributed. Grantees will also be required to post regular project updates to the Rising Voices website, be in regular communication with Rising Voices staff, as well as actively participate in the Rising Voices community.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below or by sending an email to eddie [at] globalvoicesonline [dot] org.

Good luck!

Written by Eddie Avila
· comments (86)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

By Robert Niles: My world is awash in crap data. Several times a week, I open my snail mail box to find bulk-mail solicitations for some member of one of my websites, but sent to the site's street address. Every month or so, I'll get a series of calls to my business phone (which is listed on my website), but the caller will ask for a name I've never heard. For the rest of that week, I'll get dozens of similar calls, from different people calling on behalf of some work-at-home scheme, all asking for the same fake name. And whenever I'm stuck searching for information via Google or Bing, I inevitably have to scroll past link after link to scraped websites - pages written not by any human being, but slapped together by scripts created to blend snippets from other webpages into something that will fool Google's or Bing's algorithm into promoting them. If Google really wants to make its search engine results pages more meaningful, forget about adding links from my Google+ friends. How about creating a scraper-free search engine, instead? I have no doubt that the reason why I get all those misaddressed letters and wrong-number phone calls is that some fly-by-night "data" company scraped together a database by mashing up names, street addresses and phone numbers it crawled on various websites. That database gets laundered through some work-at-home company, which sells it to customers suckers via the Internet as a "lead list" for commission sales. It's bad enough to take phone calls from these poor chumps, who think that they've taken a step toward earning some honest income. But I'm stunned when I see the bogus-name letters coming to my office from established colleges and non-profit institutions, who clearly also have bought crap mailing lists. (FWIW, all my phone numbers are on the National Do-Not-Call Registry, and I'm opted out of commercial snail mail with the Direct Marketing Association, so no legitimate data company should be selling my contact information to businesses and organizations I've not dealt with before.) Maybe it's too much to hope for a solution that frees me from having to throw away all these unwanted letters and beg off these unwanted phone calls. (Not to mention saving the people contacting the expense of pursuing bogus leads.) But maybe I can hope for a scraper-free Internet experience instead.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo sent a letter to legislative leaders today to tell them about that um…you know…that massive convention center he mentioned he wants to build during his State of the State speech last week. Cuomo has been criticized for seemingly avoiding any of the steps mandated by state law for a project involving gaming in the state. He addresses the point in the letter stating:

“In the past selection of gaming operators, race track issues, VLT designations have raised serious ethical and legal issues for the state. To be sure, the state’s current gaming arrangements are varied and controversial. I look forward to the opportunity to bring a logic and strategy to gaming operations in the state over the next two years through development of casino legislation and regulations.

In the interim, any transaction that the state makes with Genting or any modifications to the current state agreement will be submitted to the legislature for full review and action before becoming binding. Given the past history, while I may have the legal authority to proceed unilaterally, I choose to only proceed in full public view and with support of the legislature in a spirit of cooperation.”

Dear Majority Leader Skelos and Speaker Silver:

In my State of the State message last week, I spoke about a comprehensive program to foster economic development across the state. As the state’s resources are limited, our task will be to leverage private sector activity without significant funding from the state; no small challenge. Two projects I discussed were development of a convention center complex at the Aqueduct site in Southeastern Queens and the redevelopment of the Javits Center. As you will recall Genting New York LLC was granted in September 2010, the only franchise in New York City to operate a video lottery terminal (VLT) facility under a 30 year lease on 67 acres at Aqueduct. Genting has proceeded with the project, which from all perspectives, has gone exceedingly well.

In the past selection of gaming operators, race track issues, VLT designations have raised serious ethical and legal issues for the state. To be sure, the state’s current gaming arrangements are varied and controversial. I look forward to the opportunity to bring a logic and strategy to gaming operations in the state over the next two years through development of casino legislation and regulations.

In the interim, any transaction that the state makes with Genting or any modifications to the current state agreement will be submitted to the legislature for full review and action before becoming binding. Given the past history, while I may have the legal authority to proceed unilaterally, I choose to only proceed in full public view and with support of the legislature in a spirit of cooperation.

Genting has proposed further development of the site which includes the creation of a destination location of international potential. The destination location will include gaming, hotel rooms, entertainment, exhibition and convention center facilities. The economic impact of the project would be enormous, estimated to create thousands of construction and private sector jobs. The state investment would be minimal with potentially the greatest number of jobs produced in the state in many, many years. As you know, in each of the VLT racinos across the state, the state has, through legislation, negotiated a revenue sharing agreement and such an agreement would need to be negotiated here. Importantly, the new agreement would be binding only upon the new VLT terminal revenue which would be granted to the Aqueduct facility; while the terms and conditions of our original agreement remain in place. Hence, there is only the possibility of additional revenue for the state as our current revenue stream would be untouched.

While the discussions are preliminary and conceptual, at this point the first phase would include construction of 1,000 hotel rooms, theater and entertainment components, approximately 3 million square feet of convention and exhibition space, expansion of VLT gaming space and a parking facility. Importantly, Genting has the exclusive lease on all the land anticipated to be used in phase one and is the only legislatively approved VLT operator in New York City.

The second phase would require additional land beyond the 67 acres currently under lease to Genting. The Port Authority controls an adjoining 22 acres which Genting is considering for an additional 2,000 hotel rooms and approximately a half million more square feet of convention and meeting space.

Genting is prepared to work with the relevant labor unions and execute a project labor agreement. They will also work with the local communities and local governments on zoning, and meet or exceed all state MWBE requirements.

Transportation to the site is an issue that needs to be addressed and we have been discussing the feasibility of MTA service from Manhattan to Aqueduct, with Genting paying the cost of such service.

There is also an issue as to how this racino expansion at Aqueduct would affect operations at the nearby Belmont race track.

The Aqueduct project is linked to the Javits Center redevelopment as the New York Metropolitan area needs a convention site and if we do not plan to develop one as an alternative to Javits, then Javits would need to continue to operate. As I stated in my State of the State message, the Javits Convention Center is too small to be a competitive exhibition facility, and redevelopment of the current Javits site has exciting possibilities for the West Side of Manhattan and beyond. I also believe the redevelopment of Javits will render significant economic benefit to the State of New York which is essential during these challenging fiscal times.

I will also ask the legislature to consider passing language authorizing a Constitutional Amendment to allow casino gaming in the State of New York. That referendum would be at best two years from now – if ever – and should be considered as a separate issue from these current proposals. We would hope that the Aqueduct project could be finalized within one year on an expedited time frame.

Opponents to the project point out that many conventions centers lose money. That is a true point. Most governments weigh the issue of building a convention center with public money as a “loss leader” for the net economic gain of additional tourism dollars, etc. That is a debatable proposition. However, that is not the case here. The state is not building anything. We are not spending public money on a convention center. Genting, a private entity, will take the risk of economic success. I have never been a casino or racino proponent, but we are here now and the question is how to best maximize the economics and protect our citizens.

As you know, we are working aggressively to attract business investment to New York State. It would be ironic to say the least if New York did not seize an opportunity of this scale when presented with it.

The bottom line is that this is a low risk, high reward business opportunity for the state. The Genting organization already controls the land under phase one and already is the only legislatively approved operator for VLTs in New York City. Our only “cost” is noneconomic: the issuance of additional gaming machines at a preexisting gaming facility. The reward is approximately 10,000 construction jobs, 10,000 permanent jobs and $4 billion investment in the state. This investment would be one of the largest in the state’s history at no cost to the state.

A new convention center also frees the Javits site for redevelopment. I think the merits are clear.

I would appreciate your respective staff’s attention to engage in these conversations on a joint basis to see if they can be brought to fruition.

I also think it would be advisable for us to meet together with Genting officials in the coming weeks to discuss the proposal in person.

Thank you.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo

“Secretary Duncan’s report saying New York is on the watch-list for failure is yet another warning that the inability of school districts across the state and their unions to come together has jeopardized the quality of our kids’ education. New York State’s students are now in danger of losing hundreds of millions of dollars because of the failure to devise a teacher evaluation system that works,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo just said in a statement released in response to a warning from the federal Education Department that the state has failed to meet certain obligations in the Race to the Top program that doles out millions of dollars in federal grants. Here is the full statement from his office:

“As I said in my State of the State Address, this state is facing a crisis in our education system and how we hold our schools accountable for their performance in educating our children. We cannot allow a system to continue where we spend the most of any state on education, but rank only 38th in results. It does a disservice to both the student and the taxpayer.

We have a system that protects the massive education bureaucracy rather than focusing on investing in our classrooms. The forces that protect this bureaucracy have stymied reform at every turn, and as a result, hundreds of millions of dollars in education funding are now at risk.

One of the tasks set forth by the original Race to the Top competition was simple – design a teacher evaluation system that holds teachers accountable for their performance. Without a doubt, the system the state designed to accomplish this goal has been a failure.

Secretary Duncan’s report saying New York is on the watch-list for failure is yet another warning that the inability of school districts across the state and their unions to come together has jeopardized the quality of our kids’ education. New York State’s students are now in danger of losing hundreds of millions of dollars because of the failure to devise a teacher evaluation system that works.

We need to achieve both short term and long term reform of this failed system. I will pursue such reform aggressively.

In the short term, I call on the State Department of Education, local school districts and the union leadership to expedite their negotiations on a teacher evaluation system to prevent the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.

Over the long term, we need to overhaul the system and change the law on the books. The Assembly-led legislation in 2010 protected the teachers union at the expense of the students and instituted a system that was destined to fail.

Despite the powerful interests working to protect the status quo at the expense of our students’ success, this state must become a national leader in student performance.”

he best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Nathan Gibbs

1. Myspace plans new Web TV service (AllThingsD)

2. How France's Free will reinvent mobile (GigaOM)

3. NBC to deliver 2012 Olympics in 3D with Panasonic (Multichannel News)

4. Ladies' Home Journal crowdsources articles from its readers (Advertising Age)

5. Google fuses Google+ into search (TechCrunch)

6. Some Ford vehicles will give drivers voice control of NPR's iPhone app (NPR)

7. B&N offers free Nook with purchase of a 1-year Nook subscription to People or New York Times (mocoNews)

Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!


#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:450px;}
Subscribe to Daily Must Reads newsletter

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

Education content on MediaShift is brought to you by:

Innovation. Reputation. Opportunity. Get all the advantages journalism and PR pros need to help put their future in focus. Learn more about USC Annenberg's Master's programs.

For Ebony Green, a career as a scientist might have seemed unlikely just last year.

The stereotypical outcome for girls like Ebony, an eighth-grader at Frick Middle School in a rough part of East Oakland, isn’t necessarily a high-paying job in science, math, engineering or technology. In fact, 40 percent of Oakland Unified School District students drop out.

Still, despite her surroundings and the legacy of her race, gender, family background, and income bracket, Ebony sees a different future for herself. She wants to be a pediatrician, or maybe a vet, and she's starting to take steps to get there.

Last fall, without her mother knowing, Ebony enrolled herself in Techbridge, an after-school science and math program geared specifically to girls. She signed up for math tutoring at school because she's struggling in the subject. And her science teacher, Ken Eastman, says she even came to his science class twice a day for a while.

Ebony’s interest in science stands in contrast to the reality of women working in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. Although women make up half the country's work force, they comprise less than 25 percent of STEM-related jobs, according to a Department of Commerce report from last year.

Apart from the overall problem of cutting out hands-on science projects and tinkering in schools, the issue is even more pointed when it comes to girls. A recent study called "Why So Few" shows that only 20 percent of bachelors degrees in STEM fields go to girls.

But Techbridge is showing Ebony an alternate future. Once a week, she and 20 other girls voluntarily stay after school from 3 to 5 p.m. to get their hands on soldering irons and protractors to make things like LED-lit sculptures and catapults. Beyond teaching these girls those specific skills, Techbridge is giving them something much more.

"It’s interesting to me," Ebony said. "Because some things that I didn’t believe, I believe in now. I never knew about soldering, or I never knew about crystals or anything like that, and since I’m interested in that I wanted to get into a program where it’s a lot about it."

THE IMPORTANCE OF ROLE MODELS

One thing research consistently shows is the impact that one-on-one relationships and role models can have in influencing kids. And that's one of the defined goals of the Techbridge program.

To that end, Ebony and her peers get to work once a week with Esosa Ozigbo, who comes from a similar background as many of the girls in the program -- single-parent home, struggling financially, parents who never graduated from high school. But Ozigbo, a Stanford graduate with a science degree, is living proof that there's a way out -- and it might just be in a field like science or math.

"I definitely know that growing up, it would have been great to have someone like that come in and talk to me," Ozigbo said.

Ozigbo leads Techbridge field trips, taking girls to companies like Google and Yahoo for site visits so they see for themselves the possibility of a life that's different than what they've lived so far.

"I took some girls to San Francisco -- they had never been on the other side of the bay," she said. "It's just about seeing what's out there and seeing if it's in your grasp and saying, 'This is what I have to do, this is what I can do.' I think that makes the world of a difference."

Though they only meet once a week, Ozigbo makes sure to connect personally with the girls. Sometimes she takes Ebony home after, and they have a chance to talk about what's going on.

"Even in that short time, we're going to reach them all, we talk, we laugh, we joke about things like guys and stuff like that," she said. "We tell them to always stand up for what you believe in, we do shout-outs to the girls who get up so they learn how to be comfortable when speaking in a crowd. It's little, but I'm hoping that those little different things will make a big difference in the end."

Claude Steele thinks it will. Steele is the author of "Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us" and the dean for the School of Education at Stanford University.

"What those girls will see from that kind of a program is that women do succeed in these fields, that role model strategy is a really effective one," Steele said. "It's the existence proof idea, the stereotype may be out there, but look, there's a woman who is succeeding, and that means it's possible for me to succeed, and it starts to reduce the sense that I would worry about being seen stereotypically."

Learning About Search from Google

Tasha Bergson-Michelson, a search expert at Google, is one of the women that Techbridge girls get to meet. Last month, a group of girls from Montera Middle School in Oakland were brought to Google to learn some important tips in using the site to conduct research -- whether it's simply for curiosity or for a school project.

"I believe that access to information is one of the greatest equalizing forces," Bergson-Michelson said. "Knowing how to find information, evaluate it, and use it appropriately is one of the ways we see a divergence among people who have access to education and those who don't. "

Bergson-Michelson hopes that her time with the Techbridge girls will show that her route could also be theirs. "I want them to know that whatever path they choose to take, they have the power to -- by experimentation and by engaging with our world and thinking creatively -- learn a great deal about these technologies they use every day and become more powerful," she said. "How could you possibly get a job at Google if you didn't start with a dream?"

The fact that Ebony shows up to Techbridge week after week on her own volition is an encouraging sign to Ozigbo.

"She's coming every week, finding some sort of acceptance or community or fun in here," she said. "Once these girls get that satisfaction from completing that kit, or making that soldering ornament and knowing they can do something that most people aren't given the chance to do, that most adults don't know how to do or don't know about, that knowledge in itself is so empowering and can really take them places."

As part of the PBS American Graduate Program, I produced a segment for the PBS NewsHour on Ebony Green and Techbridge with correspondent Spencer Michels. Here's the segment:

Watch Oakland Program Aims to Pique Girls' Interest in Science, Tech Careers on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Tina Barseghian is the editor of KQED's MindShift, an NPR website about the future of education. In the past, she's worked as the executive editor of Edutopia, a magazine published by the George Lucas Education Foundation, as well as an editor at O'Reilly Media and CMP Media. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

This post originally appeared on KQED's MindShift, which explores the future of learning, covering cultural and tech trends and innovations in education. Follow MindShift on Twitter @mindshiftKQED and on Facebook.

Education content on MediaShift is brought to you by:

Innovation. Reputation. Opportunity. Get all the advantages journalism and PR pros need to help put their future in focus. Learn more about USC Annenberg's Master's programs.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».