Technology
Phablets likely to boost responses to ads embedded in news stories and videos
2015 RJI Mobile Media Research Report 3 Owners responded more frequently to embedded ads using large-screen smartphones than with other devices Owners of phablets were much more likely to respond to advertisements embedded in news stories and videos than owners of standard smartphones, tablets and personal computers, according to the latest Donald W. Reynolds Journalism … Continued
FL#142: Enlisting product managers and automating more complex stories
This week we explore the role of product managers within news organizations, and we find out how more complex stories might be written by computers. PART 1: Product managers for news Borrowing from the tech and business worlds, several large news organizations have integrated the role of product manager into their workflows. The result can … Continued
Reporting into structure: How journalists, crowds and robots can work together
In previous posts, I’ve written about structured journalism’s potential to improve newsroom economics by rebundling news as networks of structured information, and to provide new value to consumers by giving them more control over the news they consume. But what does structured journalism do for journalists? Will structure merely contribute to the tech-driven weakening of … Continued
WordPress moves news past the printed newspaper
Local newspaper sites have long broken all the rules for building a sticky site. Most still load painfully slowly. They are difficult to navigate and — let’s be honest — often ugly.—Matthew Hindman, Shorenstein Center For centuries newspaper design has stayed about the same. In 1880 printers introduced halftone photographs and in the 1980s the … Continued
The Apple News app is not living up to its hype
The Apple News app launched with much hype on September 15. I’ll always remember that date because the app’s launch was a major determinant for me to pivot Reportory, my news customization platform, from a consumer-facing service to a license play for publishers. The Apple News app hadn’t launched when I first profiled 15 other … Continued
Undergoing the great entrepreneurial pivot
Many entrepreneurs find themselves pivoting at some point during their entrepreneurial journey. Even some of the leading tech companies today pivoted in their early days: Instagram initially was a check-in service called Burbn; Facebook was FaceMash, asking users to rate which person was hotter; and YouTube was a video dating site. Whether pivoting sales strategy, … Continued
Need for speed 2: Newspaper data diving, metrics and methodologies
Welcome to the weeds, fellow bit-twisters and data divers. We can chat here without worrying about the numeracy nonbelievers. This post details the methodologies used in “Need for speed 1: Newspaper load times give ‘slow news days’ new meaning.” First, you and I both know “load time” is a fickle metric, completely dependent on the … Continued
Models for preserving news archives that long served the industry leave digital content in peril
Edward McCain, digital curator of journalism at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, spoke about the growing loss of born-digital content at Dodging the Memory Hole: Beyond NDNP, a meeting of concerned archivists, journalists and other stakeholders held on Sept. 16 in Washington, D.C. Below are his remarks. How many of you read George Orwell’s novel … Continued
McCainspeakwrite plusgood, or How I came up with the name ‘Dodging the Memory Hole’
We started digging our current Memory Hole a few decades ago: Technological systems that support the creation and presentation of modern journalism, those digital troves holding “the first rough draft of history,” morphed so quickly and frequently over the years that we no longer know where the treasure is buried. Like drunken buccaneers, journalistic enterprises … Continued
McCainspeakwrite or How I came up with the name ‘Dodging the Memory Hole’
It’s been two years since I rolled out of Tucson, Arizona, and headed east on Interstate 10 toward the University of Missouri, a.k.a. Mizzou, my alma mater in Columbia, Missouri. Along with suitcases and camera gear from 30 years as a photojournalist, I brought audiobooks to pass the hours on cruise control. My first selection … Continued