Tag idealab

Entries 17 Total

On IdeaLab: The Pitch mashes up journalists, bloggers, and social media types in Seattle

Nov 20, ’08 10:52 PM

Over at IdeaLab, an IM interview with Jason Preston of Eat Sleep Publish about a series of events he’s organizing called “The Pitch.”

The premise?  Put together some of the smartest, most engaged, passionate thinkers about the changing media landscape in a room, buy them a few drinks, and let the conversation flow.

Jason:

“And I think that there’s a lot to be gained from putting old school journalists and publishers (good reporting skills, contacts, and they RUN the freaking business) in a room with bloggers and new media types (who might not know the first thing about journalism, but who seem to instinctively *get* the internet).”

Check it out.  If in you’re in Seattle, you can RSVP for the Dec. 10 event here.

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On IdeaLab: Stack Overflow is your premium question answer tool

Nov 14, ’08 3:31 PM

I’m trying to get into the habit of posting a few medium-length items over at IdeaLab every week.  here’s a start:

Stack Overflow Sets an Example for News Commenting Systems

The premise?  Stack Overflow, a new-ish site for programmers to answer each other’s questions, has a great voting system for comments, which are really just the answers to the questions.

Wouldn’t it be cool if your news site’s commenting system allowed you, as an editor, to choose the best comment and highlight it in the thread, or pull it up to the top?  I’m talking about a checkbox here, not a copy/paste job.

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IdeaLab: Microblogging tools for your newsroom

Oct 16, ’08 1:43 PM

Over at IdeaLab, I’ve posted a rundown of some of the internal Twitter for Enterprise type services that are out there at the moment, from the Prologue theme for WordPress (free!) to Backpack Journal from 37signals (not free!).

Plus, there’s a bit about the feature inspiration I picked up yesterday at blip.fm.

The evolving list of features I intend to add to ReportingOn is over on at blog.reportingon.com.  Check it out and let me know what you want to see happen there next.

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IdeaLab: One week of ReportingOn, international style

Oct 8, ’08 3:23 PM

Yes, yes, I know I haven’t written much here lately, but my reading and blogging time is mostly getting happily occupied with development on ReportingOn, which has been open for a week now in a public beta.

The most noticeable thing about ReportingOn so far is the strong Spanish- and Portugeuse-speaking turnout.  Seriously, North America, where are y’all at?

The awesomeness that is the Spanish-speaking media blogosphere has been kind to me so far, though.  Yesterday, Pablo Mancini, who works at the beautiful El Comercio in Peru, interviewed me by e-mail.

I’ve posted the English version at IdeaLab. Check it out:

Q: It seems there are quite a few non-US journalists, several of them from South America, among the first 100-odd users. Had you counted on so many non-Americans joining so fast?

A: The biggest surprise of the first week, which you and your colleagues are the evidence of, is the huge turnout from Spanish and Portuguese-speaking journalists. I’m scrambling to come up with an intelligent way to deal with the different languages on the site without creating too many divisions between users based on their location. As a researcher, it’s really exciting to me because it’s what we might call an “unintended use” of the site, and as a developer, it’s exciting to have a sudden need to push something up the feature queue in a hurry.

So, tell a journalist or blogger with a beat about ReportingOn, and I’ll keep working on adding features like comments, better profile pages, and an assortment of other things on my list.

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IdeaLab: DIY Django development at ReportingOn

Oct 3, ’08 1:43 PM

Over at IdeaLab, I’ve posted a bit of background on why I ended up building ReportingOn in Django instead of Drupal.  Frankly, to the users of the site, it shouldn’t matter which platform I chose, but to me, and to the future of the project as an open source basis for news organizations, I think it matters a great deal.

Here’s a clip from the IdeaLab post:

“Did I need the structure Drupal came with for users, posts, archives, feeds, and comments? Probably. But there was a whole bunch of other baggage, like all the WYSIWYG block and module organization that I wasn’t as comfortable with. My first instinct was to start from scratch and build my own theme, but I quickly realized I needed to build my own content types. And views. And the file system was confusing to me, coming from WordPress. Plus, although the Drupal community is full of awesome people building awesome modules, I still couldn’t figure out how to do a few simple things, like create a content type with a maximum length (say, 140 characters).”

Bonus: Django is fun, challenging in a productive way, and I know a ton of people working and playing with it.

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ReportingOn FAQ

Jul 14, ’08 4:49 PM

Over at IdeaLab, I’ve posted the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about ReportingOn.

Like this:

Q: So what am I supposed to say about the story I’m working on?

A: As much or little as you want. Maybe you just want to mention something general about your story and tag your update with your beat to let your peers know what you’re up to. Or maybe you have a question that needs an answer, or you’re bored with all the “usual suspects” sources and you’re looking for an introduction to an expert with a different point of view. You’ll probably get exactly as much information out of ReportingOn as you put into it.

Check it out and add your comments there.

I happen to know some people with ideas.

Jul 5, ’08 10:11 PM

If you’re not already subscribed to the PBS IdeaLab blog, the forum for Knight News Challenge winners to talk about their projects, spout off on related topics, and generally try to change the world, now would be a good time.

Here’s a few recent posts over there that I’m still thinking about:

Check it out, leave a comment, rate a post.  I’ll be posting there for the next two years (!) about the progress and upkeep of ReportingOn.

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