Topics: Blogs, Twitter, podcasts, forums, social networking apps, Video, text, are you using them effectively Mapping tools
Session leaders: Jeff Achen, www.Thisweeklive.com & Joshua Mack, www.Outside.in
Notes: Some tools in use by various web sites included YouTube/video embedding, Twitter and Twitter “badges” placed on home pages to provide Twitter updates on a given site, mapping tools to bring news and information on a given geographical area together, forums, podcasts, blogs (of course).
Paulding.com is using Invision Power Board software to allow users to post YouTube videos on their site: Check out how they do this at http://www.paulding.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=127091
Other video players being used in blogs and news sites include BlipTV.com, SesameVault.com, Brightcove.com, Photobucket.com, and Yahoo! Videos. Sesamevault.com is a paid service for bandwidth, which gives freedom to the blogger or news site to run their own advertising before or during videos. YouTube news director Olivia Ma was at the session and said she didn’t know YouTube’s policy on whether or not they allow advertising on uploaded videos. Some sites, such as Brightcove.com require a paid account to do advertising with video uploads. This is something to check in the user agreements especially if you’re news organization or blog intends to use video ads to generate revenue at some point.
Tish Grier of www.PlaceBlogger.com said Twitter can be an effective tool for news and information sites IF there’s a personality driving it. Fan pages or group pages on social networking apps can also be useful, again with the stimpulation that a personality is driving it. You can’t just create applications and expect the audience to jump right in. They want to see that social networking apps are alive and functional as well as inviting.
Griff Wigley of www.LocallyGrownNorthfield.org said he’s using Twitter by placing a Twitter “badge” on his site that updates readers with his and other site member “tweets”. Griff said Twitter is a way to have more eyeballs in the community. It’s also a good way to let Twitter and Facebook audiences know what’s happening on your news site.
Antonia Nagy of the Ilex Foundation mentioned del.icio.us as a great way for bloggers or researchers to tag the stories on the web that they are sourcing. It is a form of transparency in blogging to link to sources. Olivia Ma of YouTube also said www.Publish2.com is great for tagging stories.
“Publish2 is a platform for link journalism, exclusively for professional journalists and newsrooms. With Publish2’s link tools and News Network, journalists can discover, organize, rank, and publish links to the most interesting and important content on the web.”
www.nowpublic.com has a lot of new tools in use. Micheal Tippett, co-founder, said they’re using embedding Twitter in user’s accounts so it allows them to update through “tweets” where they are or what they’re doing right on www.nowpublic.com. They’re also creating a “listening engine” that looks for keywords (entered by users) and publishes a personalized widget. This is only for Twitter.
Joshua Mack of Outside.in said his web site wants to hear what bloggers and news sites want in mapping tools to bring local content together on their sites. He talked about a form of geo-searching that finds news/blog posts by geographical area.
Griff Wigley of LocallyGrownNorthfield.org said he’s been surprised at the number of add ons that can be used to create vibrant blogs.
Jeff Achen of Thisweeklive.com said he’s producing three weekly podcasts. One is a local sports podcast where the sports editors talk about the week in local sports. The second is a political podcast where the host interviews a local political figure each week on a specific local political topic. The third is a summary of the week’s news in Spanish. Thisweeklive.com partnered with a native Spanish speaker in the community to help them translate and read the news as a cheap way to reach the Spanish speaking audience in their community.