Experiments

How do you know if something you wrote is engaging? MIT's Rosalind Picard believes that arousal predicts memory of and attention to detail.

New firm measures reader actions in predictive analytics endeavor. Some 40 websites are giving it a try

Hot off the press this week is a new book on using psychophysiological measures to study how the brain processes media content.

Inside Google Plus, a new beta social networking site, is a news gathering goldmine that holds huge potential for us news miners. “Hangout” is a 10 person video chat room that is already transforming viewer interaction in mid-Missouri. I describe a Hangout as a free satellite truck attached to a built in crowd sourcing tool.

Brian Steffens, Director of Communications

Paywall successes win converts at Cannes media conference

Google's Schmidt: Mobile the next trillion dollar business

SeattlePulp.com: urban lifestyle site targets 18- 49-year-olds

ComScore: iPad owns 97 percent of U.S. tablet traffic

News Corp: Tablets not "the web in your hand" but new paper stock

"While our colleagues on the business side deserve credit for pushing newsrooms to become more nimble in recent years, they have also consistently failed to imagine and then incubate a Craigslist, a Groupon, a Monster. com, let alone a Google or a Facebook. Nor are they any closer today than they were last year in fixing the broken business model of quality journalism. ... Free is indeed very expensive. But, what the prolonged and knee-jerk debate about free vs. paid inside our news organizations shows is that we still have what led us here in the first place: An imagination deficit. ... It is time we figured out how to make it [journalism] easier, more engaging and useful. -- Raju Narisetti, Managing Editor, read more in The Washington Post

Brian Steffens, Director of Communications

Cable television's HBO has a new marketing tagline. Might it point the way for other media?

If you define premium as original content, as HBO has done, then virtually every newspaper or hyper-local news website can be considered to have premium content.

Brian Steffens, Director of Communications

Did your workweek get away from you? Anxious or afraid you missed something you should know? RJI shares links to hot-topic web posts of interest to those immersed in journalism innovation and transition.

Bill Densmore, 2008-2009 Fellow

Around the nation, entrepreneurs are testing methods for delivering news that matters to small communities -- without the legacy costs of newsprint, presses and delivery. In the small New England college town of Williamstown (pop. 7,500) a non-profit organization begun in the 1980s has revived and turned to testing the waters of a new approach. RJI consulting fellow Bill Densmore is among those helping.

Brian Steffens, Director of Communications

Did your workweek get away from you? Anxious or afraid you missed something you should know? RJI shares links to hot-topic web posts of interest to those immersed in journalism innovation and transition.

David Herzog, 2010-2011 Fellow

We launched OpenMissouri.org as part of my RJI fellowship on March 17, during Sunshine Week. We had 135 data sets from nearly 20 state government agencies listed on the site at kickoff.

Since then, we’ve hit nearly 150 data sets and are continuing to add features (data file sharing and Sunshine letter generator) and otherwise tweak the site.

I’ve learned some great lessons this fellowship year by tapping into the wisdom of my fellow RJI fellows and Columbia developer Jamie Stephens, and from reading “Getting Real,” a book from 37signals, a web software company.

Here are some of those lessons, in no particular order