They’re putting it out there. . . September 22, 2007
Posted by deene in ideas.2 comments
Some of you have probably heard about this already, but this week The New York Times decided to abolish their charge for the online MyTimes section of the paper that included columnists such as Maureen Dowd and other content. They also opened their online archive to the public, free of charge. This seems to be a shift in online news: rather than having people pay for content they expect to come free of charge, online news providers seem to be relying more and more on advertising as their main source of revenue. The Wall Street Journal still has some online sections you pay for, but our glorious leader Murdoch has said he is considering pulling the plug on that. I know the mockup you guys created (which looks pretty cool by the way) is more functional than ascetic, but how much advertising should we have on this site? MLive, which is the site all the Booth papers share (man does it suck) sticks ads in the middle of stories. I’d like to stay away from that, but the Times and The Washington Post both have ads you have to view before you can see content. What do you all think of this? How much space should we relegate on our site to advertising?
A Tool with a Game September 12, 2007
Posted by Brian in announcements, ideas, interactivity, mashups, software.add a comment
In case anyone didn’t know, the latest version of Google Earth comes with an easter egg: a flight simulator.
This is, of course, way above our abilities to integrate a “game” within a wonderful tool, but it’s just something to look at.
Bones September 8, 2007
Posted by Rob Ponte in ideas, participatory journalism.5 comments
Okay so I was thinking about the underlying structure of our idea. The “skeleton” if you will and I think that we should all agree on what that structure is and what it’s based on. So I think that creative commons licensing should play a huge part in the underlying shared and non-commercial basis of the collab portal. I’m sure were all familiar with some of these. They are options that the user can pick and choose and should be integrated into the submission forms. From creativcommons.org :
Attribution. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.
Example: Jane publishes her photograph with an Attribution license, because she wants the world to use her pictures provided they give her credit. Bob finds her photograph online and wants to display it on the front page of his website. Bob puts Jane’s picture on his site, and clearly indicates Jane’s authorship.
Our core licensing suite will also let you mix and match conditions from the list of options below. There are a total of six Creative Commons licenses to choose from our core licensing suite.
Noncommercial. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for noncommercial purposes only
Examples: Gus publishes his photograph on his website with a Noncommercial license. Camille prints Gus’ photograph. Camille is not allowed to sell the print photograph without Gus’s permission.
No Derivative Works. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.
Example: Sara licenses a recording of her song with a No Derivative Works license. Joe would like to cut Sara’s track and mix it with his own to produce an entirely new song. Joe cannot do this without Sara’s permission (unless his song amounts to fair use).
Share Alike. You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.
Note: A license cannot feature both the Share Alike and No Derivative Works options. The Share Alike requirement applies only to derivative works.
Example: Gus’s online photo is licensed under the Noncommercial and Share Alike terms. Camille is an amateur collage artist, and she takes Gus’s photo and puts it into one of her collages. This Share Alike language requires Camille to make her collage available on a Noncommercial plus Share Alike license. It makes her offer her work back to the world on the same terms Gus gave her.
More examples are available on our examples page. Also note that every license carries with it a full set of other rights in addition to the allowances specifically made here.
I also commented on another thread about what our revenue source will be. I think that most likely it would be the same kind of advertising as whatever news website that uses it is. I do think we should try to provide another option since I think a lot of people won’t want to contribute to a site that takes possession of their work and makes money off of it from advertising. I wouldn’t.
So the next step is (?) we need people to create the mockup or prototype (the tech group?), write the script, define the idea and its limits and then basically we all need to be as critical as possible so that we can end up with the most impervious and solid idea there ever were, right?
My understanding of the project before seeing Jeff’s art September 5, 2007
Posted by rebeccaperez in ideas, mashups, participatory journalism.add a comment
this sounds really cool, but until I have something that I can look
> at I may be a bit confused. So this is a potential app that allows
> people to contribute local knowledge wikki style, interface with other
> people like facebook, except they aren’t “friends,” but people you have
> collaborated with, ability to upload all kinds of content to be used by
> the news site or other users, and the ability to communicate with the
> journalists in realtime chat rooms. Did I forget or change anything?
> This is so potentially massive I’m having a hard time envisioning a
> news site being able to run all of these apps. Do the papers have the
> option to take off some of the features? I love all of the features
> and I think this would be a great boon to citizen journalism and
> localism, I’m just concerned about trying to do too much. Let me know
> what you think. Doing too much was a problem with K-State’s project,
> among others, I’m afraid that this has the potential to have the same
> problem. Just a thought.
Today’s Undertaking September 3, 2007
Posted by Rob Ponte in ideas.add a comment
Alright, so there are many ways in which communities can form and collaborate. The wikipedia article on collaborative software offers some insights. Heres some basics.
“Electronic communication tools
Electronic communication tools send messages, files, data, or documents between people and hence facilitate the sharing of information. Examples include:
Electronic conferencing tools
Electronic conferencing tools facilitate the sharing of information, but in a more interactive way. Examples include:
- Internet forums (also known as message boards or discussion boards) — a virtual discussion platform to facilitate and manage online text messages
- Online chat — a virtual discussion platform to facilitate and manage real-time text messages
- Telephony — telephones allow users to interact
- Video conferencing — networked PCs share video and audio signals
- Data conferencing — networked PCs share a common whiteboard that each user can modify
- Application sharing — users can access a shared document or application from their respective computers simultaneously in real time
- Electronic meeting systems (EMS) — a conferencing system built into a room. The special purpose room will usually contain a large video projector interlinked with numerous PCs..
Collaborative management tools
Collaborative management tools facilitate and manage group activities. Examples include:
- electronic calendars (also called time management software) — schedule events and automatically notify and remind group members
- project management systems — schedule, track, and chart the steps in a project as it is being completed
- workflow systems — collaborative management of tasks and documents within a knowledge-based business process
- knowledge management systems — collect, organize, manage, and share various forms of information
- extranet systems (sometimes also known as ‘project extranets’) — collect, organize, manage and share information associated with the delivery of a project (eg: the construction of a building)
- hosted intranet systems (such as Hyperoffice,Hotoffice or Intranets.com) — collect, organize, manage and share information associated with the delivery of a project (eg: the construction of a building)
- social software systems — organize social relations of groups
- online spreadsheets — collaborate and share structured data and information
Collaborative software can be either web based (such as UseModWiki or Scoop), or desktop systems (such as CVS or RCS).”
Our idea I think should not be a wiki but should incorporate some aspects of these combined communication mediums in a way that easily identifies who authored which parts and allows users to not only work on different parts of a story together but also conceive of ideas for them together.
I think open-source programming communities can also lend us some advice. The whole drupal network I think is good example of how people can work together on a larger project from smaller angles, creating widgets and plug ins and such. They use forums extensively and I think it works well. How can we improve on that?
The ubuntu community is also pretty large and complex. It uses wikis, forums, IRC and other methods to connect people and even fosters local communities.
Oh and as far as a name, Storybook.com? anybody?
What are we trying to accomplish here? September 3, 2007
Posted by charlotteanne in ideas, interactivity, participatory journalism.2 comments
I saw some comments this past week that made me think some of you needed a repost of something I wrote long ago and far away (OK, in June) … so here it is verbatim:
Every so often it’s important to ponder our mission and refocus. I promised you I would post this, so here it is, straight from the grant document.
First, here is the big picture from Knight :
The Knight Brothers 21st Century News Challenge Initiative seeks…
• New ways for people to communicate interactively to help people better understand one another in geographic communities, share know-how and generate passion in solving local problems;
• New ways for people to use information, news and journalism in geographic communities to imagine their collective possibilities as communities, and to set and reach common community goals;• New ways to dig for news and act on it in geographic communities, including new ways to collect, prepare and distribute information, news and journalism that reveals hard-to-know facts, identifies common problems, clarifies community issues or points out practical courses of action.
Now, here is what Dr. Dianne promised we would deliver:
“… an effective, efficient and replicable system with the capacity to generate and execute entirely new approaches to and examples of participatory community news.“
“… original and relevant models of news production, format and distribution, and it will make those models available to individual, independent and industry news producers
“… an entirely new form of participatory community journalism, one that is scalable, replicable, affordable and effective. Deliverables may adopt any digital format or approach – from a Web site, to a news application, to an immersive media simulation or platform. But they must be adaptable and relevant, useful to real people and real communities.”
“… Most important, the project will generate new approaches to community news production and delivery, which will be made available to all news producers across the country.”
Think about it. Ponder it. Print it out and put it inside your AP Stylebook under your pillow and grok it.
And first one to send me a link with the real origin of the word “grok” wins. 
(hint: it ain’t Steve Jobs!)
Better late than never September 1, 2007
Posted by deene in ideas, presentation, weekly goals.add a comment
Okay, so this is late, but like the title of this post says. . . I’d like to get behind Rob’s idea. It has a lot of the elements we’re looking for, and it seems to combine some of our best ideas with what’s already out there. Additionally, I don’t feel like we should be too concerned with what will appeal to people at ONA because if our project is great then they’ll want it, regardless of it’s exceedingly cheap or easy to impliment. If our idea is strong enough then they’ll go the extra mile to impliment it. Talk to you all tomorrow!
~Katie
Okay, another thought… August 31, 2007
Posted by Jeff in ideas.2 comments
What about doing something really unique with Flash, displaying headlines and story content in very unique, easy-to-navigate ways, instead of text laid out in columns on a page? Maybe taking some cues from Tafiti and Visual Thesaurus?
A conversation with Brian August 31, 2007
Posted by heperimita in data display, ideas, interactivity.4 comments
After seeing Brian’s Visualized Concepts post I was intrigued, but at the same time not entirely sure what the whole euler diagram thing was representative of. I had a conversation with Brian over IM that we agreed should be posted up here on the blog because it clarified a lot of things.
Me: i liked the visual of your idea
Brian: NeatMe: but im not sure if i completely understand it
Brian: Well, it wasn’t what I intended but I could really get that out
Me: the biggest disc of those series of discs, say the data represented news stories, would represent news in its broadest sense, am i correct?
Brian: Mmhmm. Each successive disk is a set of more specific stories
Me: so the next circle would be like new in the united states, and then the next would be politics, and then demoocrats and so forth am i right so far?
Brian: Mmhmm
Me: oh i get that part, but how do you get to see the interrelatedness that all the pieces of each set of data share?
Brian: Well, I couldn’t quite figure out how to display that.
Me: the aforementioned concept is the main drive of your idea though right?
Brian: yes, and now that I think about it, I believe that the circles would have to go in the reverse order which I gave them, If stories are getting more and more specific, they would have more and more tags, right?
Me: right, ok i think i see where you are going, if it was reverse order, the smallest disc would be items tagged news and then the next disc, which would be bigger than the first, would be political news, for example
brian: Right
me: i mean items tagged with politics and news
brian: Yes!
Me: yeah that makes a lot of sense and the more tags the story has the bigger the disc it would have
brian: Right
Me: i see why it is an euler diagram and not a ven diagram, because the euler allows you to organize unrelated subsets
Brian: Yeah, Venn diagrams must have all sets connecting
Me: right, there has to be some sort of overlap with a venn.
ok now does this function as a news interface? or is it a presentation of the interrelatedness of storiesBrian: The latter, I suppose If there were this means of navigation in the middle which was visually represented by my picture, there could be some initial qualitative factors to determine the compared news. You could, say, pick “Chinese news” and “American news” and then go down by tags. Start with politics. And the disk goes up a level to Chinese political stories on the right and American on the left, then pick democrats, then pick caucus, then …
Me: barrak obama?
Brian: Sure, Although at that point I think it might break I don’t know how much Chinese news would relate the two Other than that, I don’t know what else this would do
Me: hmm right, well it would be cool if it generated the stories related to barak obama and chinese politics
Brian: lol, Yeah. I think I mostly want people to get the feel that they’re not alone in the world, that similar occurances are spread across the planet
Me: hmm, well what about if it linked blog post tags together
Brian: Conceptually, it’s supposed to link any form of news with similar tags You just need to pick a medium. So, yes for blog posts
Me: ahh, i thought that would go well with the “not being along” theme
Brian: I agree. I mean, why not have text linked to podcasts covering the same material?
me: oh right, you could even do it with music and genres of music, subect matter of the songs etc
Brian: Mmhmm, It’s the categorization that matters. As long as people have tagged items accurately and plentifully, it should be good between any media.
Visualized Concepts August 29, 2007
Posted by Brian in data display, ideas.3 comments
Some people wanted a visual for what I was thinking about, and I think this is as close as I can make within reasonable time:
It’s not quite Venn diagrams, but as I mentioned before, I realized I actually meant Euler diagrams. You can see sets within sets. Think of it like this: your computer has many folders within it. Specifically, one folder would represent one piece of a bar (read: one topic or tag). Folders of similar types would be similar colors, I suppose. You can go into a folder, and it too would have many sub-folders within it. And so on and so forth. Eventually you get to very specific files (i.e. stories). This is like the very bottom circle of bars in the picture.
In the way I originally intended it, there would be a way to choose and compare stories of similar tags. I suppose that there could be another bar within these circles that would separate by country. Or just by a tag. I want people to be able to see where similar stories are happening elsewhere. This set of circles could be the American stories with these sets of stories, but there could be an option to see ones from other countries.
PS: I edited my mash-ups post from earlier yesterday.
