Lauren Hockenson at Giga Om wonders if YouTube is “damaged forever” by its new requirement that people use their real names via Google+ if they want to leave a comment.
The comments system, especially for Youtube, is a tenuous but necessary tool — perhaps this low-key change has in fact irrevocably damaged the ecosystem Youtube has worked so hard to create.
It’s hard to imagine anyone missing the cesspool of comments that passes for an “ecosystem” at YouTube.
We put together a package for Remembrance Day that involved interviews with six Kamloops war veterans, who described a moment during when courage overcame fear. Each was interviewed by a different reporter, who also made a recording. Photographers took extra pictures and the vets were encouraged to submit snapshots of their own.
I collected these pictures and recordings then put together an audio slideshow in iMovie that nicely complements the version that appeared in the newspaper. People get to see many more pictures, plus they get to hear the stories in the vets’ own words. I have embedded the audio slideshow below. My only real regret is that we didn’t have more historical photos to better illustrate the time when the events took place. Also, reporters needed reminders to be dead silent while the subject is speaking — in one case there were several mm-hmms and notepad scratchings audible and it had to be done over.
The Webster awards, which honour the best in British Columbia journalism, have a section for excellence in digital journalism. This was news to me, but even bigger news was that one of the nominees was a radio station that ran a Twitter townhall — something we’ve done a couple of times in Kamloops without dreaming that it was deserving of an award.
So now we know better.
As it turns out, though, a much more deserving nominee won the award — a data driven exploration of political donations and lobbyists. Just getting the data in the first place took months of negotiation with the B.C. government, and then there was the headache of organizing cryptic spreadsheets so that they made some kind of sense. Congratulations to the Vancouver Sun and Chad Skelton for doing such a great job.
The Sun makes me wince sometimes when I see them wasting data resources on puff pieces such as where the best places are to get candy on Halloween, but the underlying methodology is well worth studying.
The big problem I find with data journalism is finding or creating spreadsheets. The data available is not alway conveniently laid out on a spreadsheet. Or if it is, it’s not in the order it needs to be in. This can create a lot of grunt work just to get to the stage where you can think about plugging it into a visualization tool. It’s frustrating to find a nice table of data only to find out that it’s in the form of a PDF.
Still, even news organizations with few resources should be able to persevere and do some of this type of work. It may take longer and it likely won’t get done as often, but that doesn’t mean it can’t ever get done at all.
It was bound to happen sooner or later. We’re starting to think about multimedia for our big projects.
We’ve got one coming up for Remembrance Day that essentially consists of vignettes of veterans talking about a special moment during their service.
Reporters have each been assigned one or two vets to interview, and photographers will take pictures in our studio. Sounds like any print project so far.
Here’s the multimedia part: during interviews, reporters will ask the vets to sum up one experience so that it can be recorded on an iPhone in 30 to 90 seconds. And the photographers will take a number of extra pictures of each subject, all horizontal.
What’s all this leading to? An audio slideshow, of course. When you plan for it right from the beginning, it all seems so simple.
Every once in while in my Twitter media list I come across tweets in Spanish. It’s no big deal really, but I have found it annoying that I don’t understand them. I can decipher the occasional French I come across — so why not Spanish as well?
Then I found a free app called Duolingo. And after of a couple of weeks of using it, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could completely understand the Spanish tweet I saw this morning.
Learning languages is hard for many people, especially as they get older. But the developers of Duolingo must have looked at the runaway success of game apps and decided to apply the same principles to language.
The result is a course of learning that pulls you forward with rewards, penalties, encouragement, sharing and a leader board. You even get the occasional email prompting you to keep the owl — yes, the app has a mascot — happy.
I don’t expect to become fluent with Duolingo, but if I can at least get the basics it will be time well spent. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Duolingo has succeeded in making language lessons a fun diversion.
Aside from Spanish, you can also learn French, German, Italian, Portuguese and English. And apparently, with some crowd sourcing, the app will soon offer lessons in Klingon, Dothraki and Elvish. The ability to curse in Klingon should be a skill every journalist strives for.
Some historical context for anyone covering issues related to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada is provided by a moving novel written by Richard Wagamese — Indian Horse. Recommended for anyone who wants to explore relations between whites and natives.
As a newsonaut, I look to the future of journalism and how we can get there, but remembering and understanding our past is just as important.
My first effort at creating an audio slideshow with iMovie began with the discovery that one of our photographers had taken 16 pictures for a spread in our entertainment magazine — a behind-the-scenes look at the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra.
That got the gears turning. There were lots of great photos, but what could I use for audio? At first, I thought some symphonic music would be appropriate, then I wondered about commentary from the conductor. After a bit of consultation with the KSO, I wound up doing both. I downloaded music from archive.org that matched what the orchestra was playing in its upcoming concert and I invited the conductor to come into the office to record some commentary. He’s a good sport — in fact quite used to helping out with publicity.
After dragging the photos (all horizontal and cropped to the same size) into iMovie, I bumped up the duration of each to six seconds from four seconds and left on the default Ken Burns effect. I added a nice title from the built-in collection. Next I dragged in the music, and finally the commentary. I tweaked the audio so that the music ducked discretely under the commentary.
I’ve made dozens of videos with iMovie, so working with the program to create an audio slideshow wasn’t much of a leap. Of course, what really makes it succeed are the wonderful pictures. I’m hoping that once the photographer sees it, we can find more events to collaborate on.
I have yet to use it in a mission critical situation, but I’m enthused enough about an app called Shadow Puppet to give it a hands-on, first-look review.
Apps like this come to my attention from time to time because of a desire to find an alternative to Soundslides. Although a great program and highly recommended, it requires server space for the finished product. If the place where you work is reluctant to provide this, then you need find a way around this obstacle.
One way is to instead use iMovie, then upload to YouTube and embed the code on your site. This excellent video shows how.
On the other hand, Shadow Puppet — while lacking a key feature — makes things even easier. You can do it all from your iPhone and they provide the server space and embed code.
You create a puppet, as they’re called, by first choosing some pictures from your camera roll. For example, you may have taken several pictures of some major new facility that has just opened in town. Tap all those pictures, then move them around to the order you want. You have the option of removing some if you chose too many.
The next step is to tap the recording button to tell a story about the pictures. As you record, you can move from one picture to the next, readjust them within their frame and touch areas you want to highlight with a soft burst of colour.
When you’re done, just tap save. From there, you have the option of sharing by email, Twitter, Facebook or the Shadow Puppet app. The end product is quite slick, and would look right at home on any website.
I found getting the embed code a bit tricky. They say you can find it on the web page, but what does that mean exactly? Here’s how I found it: I shared the puppet with myself via email and tapped the link provided. This took me to a web page via Safari — but there was no embed code that I could find. So I copied and pasted the URL into Mail and sent it to myself so I could open it in Safari on my iMac. And there, sure enough, was a button for the embed. I really hope there’s an easier way.
While puppets are simple and fun to create, this ease-of-use comes at the expense of an important feature found in Soundslides — the ability to bring in audio files from other sources. It would be nice, for example, if you could have not only pictures from the tour but also an interview with the person who runs the place. This interview could then be brought in as the sound track for the pictures.
I suggested this via Twitter and was told that it might be a feature in an upcoming release. I’ve got my fingers crossed.
Below is a puppet giving instructions on how to create one:
I made this move about the KamNews Twitter feed with a simple tool at Vizify. Just click on the big blue button at the top right and follow the instructions. The movie is created automatically, but once it’s done you can customize it — either by replacing scenes or by adding more.
Actually, the main point of Vizify is to create something more elaborate — a website “powered by your data.” I haven’t got into that part yet. This movie has definitely got me sucked in, though, and I’ll be exploring more of Vizify soon.
Below is the embedded version of the tweet that Vizify creates when you share it on Twitter. You can also view the movie at the Vizify website.
News happens 24 hours a day, but if you have a small newsroom you don’t have a lot of people to work all day, all night and through the weekend. With programs that schedule tweets, though, you can fake it.
Using these programs, you can create a bunch of tweets, then pick times for them. So, for example, even though no one is working in the evening or on the weekend — or at least no one with social media in their job description — you can make it look like there is.
Got an exclusive tidbit? Upload it to your website’s CMS to be posted at 7:30 p.m. Then schedule a tweet with a link for 7:35 p.m. And there you have it — breaking news while you relax at home after supper.
But how about weekends? If you’ve got news that will stand for a day or two, schedule tweets about it for Saturday morning before you leave on Friday afternoon. Got some features? Schedule three or four tweets about them over Saturday and Sunday.
One of the main reasons people like Twitter is because it gives them the news as it happens. You might not have the staff to do this, but you do have the technology.
I use Buffer to schedule tweets. But there are other programs that also work well, such as TweetDeck and HootSuite.
