DISQUS

Did Twitter ever explain why they turned off tracking?

- Amy

Hey, thanks to the link to my article about journos & geeks working together more. Yeah, if only they knew....

- Amy Gahran

Hi, Adam

I'm glad my comment on the Knight Commission blog resonated with you. Just wanted to let you know that the discussion started in the comments to the Commission's blog post is picking up steam, and it's getting really interesting.

(If that link doesn't show up in this comment, try this: http://snurl.com/3qm3n)

This has all given me much to ponder -- so much so that today on my blog Contentious.com I published the first installment in a short series exploring how we could improve civic information and media in ways that would mesh more effectively with human nature.

Being a Citizen Shouldn’t Be So Hard! Part 1: Human Nature
- alternate link: http://snurl.com/3qkxl

I'll be publishing the remaining 3 installments over the next few days. My goal is to engage my readers and others in helping me strengthen and streamline this material so I can contribute it in a useful format to the Knight Commission to aid their deliberations.

If you or your readers get a chance, I'd really appreciate it if you could check out and comment on my series. I welcome all thoughts, questions, challenges, and suggestions.

Thanks,

- Amy Gahran

Glad having you as a guest on the blog, Daniel. Good work.

- Amy Gahran

Yep, I too had to give up on the Nokia N95 last month -- even though (unlike you) I loved it. Three days after I got it, a firmware update totally bricked it. That's when I learned how truly awful Nokia's US service & support currently is. When I realized how much risk and inconvenience they foist on their US customers, I packed everything up and shipped it all back for a refund.

Fortunately, Nokia has started publicly addressing the myriad US service problems through their blog, conversations.nokia.com. Anyone who's interested in helping Nokia figure out exactly how they can improve their US service (so it's no longer an extreme obstacle to customers) should chime in on the series of posts currently running there about US service.

I just posted a roundup of this public conversation so far, with links to Nokia's posts and elsewhere: http://urltea.com/37r2

(Video version: http://seesmic.com/v/JzrmBidZ7d)

I'm also waiting to see what the next-generation iPhone will bring. So far, it simply isn't sufficient as a pro-quality mobile reporting and blogging tool. Maybe the next version will be closer, maybe even close enough. And Apple's service is, of course, excellent. But it pains me that Nokia already has a great product for users like me, but their poor service is a dealbreaker.

- Amy Gahran

Amazon has a cover of it by another guitarist: http://urltea.com/36r5. Maybe check limewire to see if anyone's posted the zappa version there?

- Amy Gahran

Thanks, Karoli

What truly appalls me is how far behind the U.S. is lagging in mobile technology, communication, and services -- arguably the fastest-growing and most potentially lucrative media market right now. My friends in Europe and Asia are amazed when I tell them of the hassled and limitations US mobile users must endure.

At a time when our economy is in trouble, this sort of trend makes me want to scream.

- Amy Gahran

Mathew -- Just wondering, does the Globe & Mail have a specific policy about blogging?

I posted about the Pazienzia flap this morning on Poynter's E-Media Tidbits: http://snurl.com/201ql

There I asked journos to say what their employers' policies are about blogging -- and to post the policy language, if possible.

Also there I noted: "It seems to me that as the media landscape shifts toward becoming more open, conversational, and personal, it's unreasonable and even counterproductive to ask or expect journalists (or anyone, really) not to participate. These days, if you're "in the media," failure to engage and participate in a transparent way online can seriously undermine your credibility -- or at least your perceived relevance."

I hope the G&M realizes how innately stupid it would be to fire you or anyone just for blogging. If anything, your blog makes you even *more* valuable to them.

- Amy Gahran

Hey, glad you found my Tidbits post useful, Mathew.

So what do you think? Where are the best opportunities for the journalism business these days?

Incidentally, yesterday on Tidbits I blogged about how the dean of Columbia j-school thinks journalism's next bright hope is government subsidies. I kid you not.

http://snurl.com/1z7zj

Intriguing, Micah -- especially your closing point.

So in practical terms, what can journalists and news org's do with this insight? How can they expand or reinforce trust through awareness of perceptions about search? I'm looking for specific tips I could pass along to my audience of news pros.

- Amy Gahran

>It is either a way to falsely inflate the number of pages I’m viewing while on their site or it’s just bad, bad design.<

Heh -- my suspicion is it's BOTH!

- Amy Gahran

Karoli, thnaks so much for this thoughtful post. I thought your observations would be useful to journalists, so I included excerpts from your post and linked to it today on Poynter's E-Media Tidbits:

http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=134357

- Amy Gahran

Thanks for mentioning my "cornerstone skills" post, Martin. I'd be curious to hear what you think on that topic.

- Amy Gahran

Hi, Mathew

This is so interesting, in light of my recent attendance at BlogHer 2007 and a conversation I was having recently with Tom Abate of MiniMediaGuy.

See: http://minimediaguy.org/2007/07/30/3rd-blogher-...
- and read the comments

In a nutshell, one reason why I love BlogHer is that its tone and culture is markedly different from any other tech or media conference I've attended. Specifically, the pissing matches there are few and muted -- whereas at most other tech/media conferences (which are largely organized and attended by men), pissing matches like what you described above are rife and even get played up as a kind of main attraction in the blog coverage.

Just food for thought.

- Amy Gahran

Hi, Mathew

I've been fascinated by the emerging phenonmenon of citizen journalism for a while now. And yes, it's a clumsy, inadequate label for something that hasn't yet fully formed.

I pondered exactly this point yesterday in "I, Reporter": "Citizen Journalism as Horseless Carriage"
- http://snipurl.com/mvfh

I do think, however, that "user-generated content" is too generic. The forces driving the growth of citizen journalism are more specific than simply the urge to publish. It's more about a desire and need for people to be more involved directly in creating news, rather than being relegated to a passive "news audience" role.

But a name is a name is a name. Ultimately, it doesn't matter so much what you call it as what you do with it.

As for "unpaid freelancing" (noted by Seth, above), Yes I can understand why some people view citizen journalists in that dismissive light. In particular, I know several professional journalists and editors who are positively incensed by the concept. It is disruptive, and even threatening to some people.

I'd encourage everyone to realize that what we're currently calling "citizen journalism" is still emerging and developing. I think it's too early to say yet exactly what part of the media landscape it will occupy -- although I do think it will stick around.

IMHO, of course

- Amy Gahran
RightConversation.com
Contentious.com
IReporter.org

Hi, Mathew

I think there's a deeper point here -- that is, the difference between publishing and conversational media. Blogging tools can be used for publishing (which is what Boing Boing generally does), or to support active conversation. And there's a pretty big gray area in between, too.

When making the distinction you're trying to make, I personally don't think it's useful to focus on "blogs" per se.

Blogs are not the point.

What's so exciting about blogs is that they can be used (especially when they allow comments) as a fairly accessible form of conversational media. Yes, they also can be used for publishing, which (I agree with you) is less exciting. So talking about "blogs" and "blogging" in this sense doesn't get to the heart of the matter. Let's not lose the forest for the trees -- or the purpose for the tools, for that matter.

IMHO, of course ;-)

- Amy Gahran
RightConversation.com
Contentious.com

Hi, Matthew. Good article, and thanks for linking to my article.

Regarding a potential business model for a service like CoComment -- yeah, I was wondering about that too. One obvious option that occurs to me would basically be serving Google or Yahoo ads onto users' CoComments pages.

But there are more sophisticated options, if they can successfully make this service fairly comprehensive, so that it works with almost any blogging platform or comment service. (How they plan to wrangle Haloscan or OPML blogs I have no idea.)

For instance, what if CoComments or one of its competitors launched a premium service that ties it in to an advanced toolkit for effectively monitoring online conversations? I bet a lot of organizations (and even some individuals) would pay dearly for that, if it worked.

It's important to remember that what makes blogs cool is not that they're new or online, but that they're a very useful and accessible aspect of conversational media. Although blog commenting is clunky and non-uniform, the tools will continue to improve. Long after blogs aren't cool anymore, conversational media (and whatever tools it adopts in the future) will be popular, because people love to talk.

IMHO, of course.

- Amy Gahran
RightConversation.com
Contentious.com

Just to clarify, the Post closed comments only on one of its 25 or so weblogs. It remains to be seen whether this closure is permanent.

- Amy Gahran
RightConversation.com

Wow, Drums, great post!

You noted: "I was defining conversation in terms of one-with-one interaction, but a blog is a one-with-many conversation, with comments amplifying the 'one' to 'many' voices."

...And that's why I consider weblogs to be a type of "conversational media" -- which is media that leverages mass communication to allow the audience to converse directly with the author and with each other.

We're generally used to thinking about conversation in terms of two people or a small group, but we now have large-scale and usually public conversations happening via conversational media. I find this trend fascinating.

I'm glad you've come to embrace a broader view of what a conversation can be.

- Amy Gahran
RightConversation.com
Contentious.com