Highlights from the 2011 journalists engagement survey. What happens if I click the ThankThis button? You are shown an exclusive local deal or a sponsored message, which rewards you and the content sharer with Patron Points, which you can donate to your favorite charities, and also pays the content creator. What is ThankThis? ThankThis is a new way to say “Thanks” online, one which benefits society and people's pocketbooks. It empowers netizens to turn (local) advertising dollars into funding for the charities and publishers they care about.
How does the ThankThis curator bar work? Nick Diakopoulos » News Commenting Systems. During my stay at the Sacramento Bee in 2009 I began studying the commenting system that the online paper was using, called Pluck. I became interested in how the newsroom dealt with quality issues in the online comment discourse. This was an important issue to the newspaper as they perceived it as impacting their standing and credibility in their community. Drawing on newsroom interviews, an online survey, and content analysis of about 54,000 comments collected from the moderation system, I characterized the comment discourse on SacBee.com, including the relationship between comment quality and the consumption or production of news information. I also explored the motivations for both readers and writers of comments. Finally, I looked into newsroom strategies for dealing with low quality comments. In ongoing work I’m looking into the temporal characteristics of news comments including trends and patterns in sentiment, topics, tempo, and comment length.
N. N. ‘Comments are content’ for local news sites: 8 tips to build community, coverage | What types of stories get comment traction on hyperlocal sites? Block by Block (BxB) surveyed independent, community news site publishers about their top reader engagement tools, and 100 percent of respondents said the comments feature on their CMS platform is enabled, making it the #1 tool for reader engagement. The BxB independent publisher community recently chatted on Twitter about the value of reader comments on their local news site: It’s a treasure-trove of news tips, community building and engagement, and site innovation. Tracy Record of West Seattle Blog said it best: “Comments are content.”
Publishers who weighed in were: Tracy Record at West Seattle Blog (WA), Ben Ilfeld at Sacramento Press (CA), Andre Natta of The Terminal (AL), Mark Loundy, media consultant and former content editor of Backfense, Debra Galant of Baristanet (NJ), and Tammy Daniels of iBerkshires (MA), and Mike Orren of Pegasusnews (TX). @annatarkov and @michelemclellan contributed to this list. A 5-minute framework for fostering better conversations in comments sections. Last week, my news organization announced we were evolving our online commenting practices a bit to improve the quality of discourse on NPR.org. Our comment threads drew some attention recently when a comment thread about the brutal assault on CBS Correspondent Lara Logan in Egypt went awry, prompting the removal of dozens of comments and an editor’s note reiterating the discussion guidelines.
Meanwhile in another corner of the Web, a related discussion of sexual harrassment of women in Egypt unfolded with civility, thoughtfulness, and occasionally even erudition (and also – fair warning — some profanity here and there). What gives? Why are these two online conversations so different? I spoke with community managers at both sites — NPR’s Eyder Peralta and MetaFilter’s Jessamyn West — to put together a framework for how to think about online comments.
Five key principles of online conversations Don’t blame (or credit) “The Internet.” For better outcomes, use better filters. Be accountable. Three kinds of engagement: outreach, conversation, collaboration. What happens if I click the ThankThis button? You are shown an exclusive local deal or a sponsored message, which rewards you and the content sharer with Patron Points, which you can donate to your favorite charities, and also pays the content creator. What is ThankThis? ThankThis is a new way to say “Thanks” online, one which benefits society and people's pocketbooks. It empowers netizens to turn (local) advertising dollars into funding for the charities and publishers they care about. ThankThis is the “Like” button for social good and serendipitous savings. How does the ThankThis curator bar work? How Should Journalists Use Social Media? @NickKristof's Fans' Advice - storify.com. Are Americans becoming more isolated from each other? Maybe, Pew says, but don’t blame Facebook.
The accusations are familiar: The Internet is making us sad. The Internet is making us lazy. The Internet is making us lonely. Pew has taken all of those ideas head-on with a new study, “Social Networking Sites and Our Lives” — the first national, representative survey of American adults on their use of social networking sites. Pew interviewed 2,255 of those American adults, 1,787 of them Internet users, between late October and late November of 2010; the survey group included 975 users of social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
The survey builds on Pew’s 2009 report on technology and isolation, which found that, while there’s been a correlative decline in the size and diversity of people’s closest relationships since the advent of digital technology, the decline hasn’t been caused (whew!) By the Internet. And today’s findings corroborate that. Trust And, among those users, Facebook-ers seem to be the most trusting of all. Viewpoint diversity. Community: A New Business Model for News. A few years ago, Public Radio International coaxed its most popular host, Ira Glass of "This American Life," into digital cinema. Ira had already expanded his famed radio program into a traveling stage show that toured a dozen cities a year. With this new idea he would perform one show and beam it live to hundreds of movie theaters around the United States at the same time. Efficient, yes, but would it be appealing, Ira wondered. After all, people came to see him and even hoped to meet him.
So would they come and pay $20 a ticket? They came in droves. This isn't a brilliant new insight. Connection as a Strategy We are social beings. Clay Shirky, a professor at New York University who studies the effects of the Internet on society, writes eloquently of how technology is unleashing the greatest wave of social communication and collaboration in our history. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are the icons of the social economy. Community, Not Audience. Rockville Central drops website for Facebook, offers eight lessons on Facebook news publishing. A little over 100 days ago, a community news blog in Rockville, Md., took a big leap. Founder and Publisher Brad Rourke and Editor Cindy Cotte Griffiths moved the entire operation of Rockville Central to a Facebook page. “Facebook is where people, by and large, have decided to go for their first-stop online community activities,” Rourke wrote in the announcement post.
“Which begs the question: Why have a separate site, and try to drag people away from Facebook? Why not go where they are?” Rockville Central uses Facebook’s notes application to post news stories, which resemble blog posts with headlines, body text and comments. Most news organizations would never consider following the Facebook-only path of Rockville Central (though a few small ones have). After more than three months immersed in Facebook-native publishing, Rockville Central’s authors have learned some things about the strengths, weaknesses and best practices of publishing on the world’s largest social network.
Baltimore NewsTrust - Blog: Join the Truthsquad and fact-check O'Malley's claim about Maryland schools. This week, we're excited to kick off our first local Truthsquad on NewsTrust Baltimore. Truthsquad is our community fact-checking service, where our community helps us research controversial claims from politicians, pundits and public figures. For the next two weeks, we'll fact-check a claim by Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, about the state's public schools system. In a news release, he said that Maryland has "America's number one public school system. " Check out the page for this quote, and follow these steps to participate: Answer the question.
As you're considering the statement, you might want to ask yourself some questions: Who determines this ranking? At the end of the two weeks, we'll consider the evidence and reach a verdict, which we'll write up and post on this blog and on the Truthsquad page. Please join in, and spread the word about this interesting new project! More about Truthsquad Join the Truthsquad, and help us separate fact from fiction. The Future of Social Media in Journalism. This series is supported by Gist. Gist provides a full view of the contacts in your professional network by creating a rich business profile for each one that includes the most news, status updates, and work details.
See how it works here. The future of social media in journalism will see the death of “social media.” That is, all media as we know it today will become social, and feature a social component to one extent or another. After all, much of the web experience, particularly in the way we consume content, is becoming social and personalized. But more importantly, these social tools are inspiring readers to become citizen journalists by enabling them to easily publish and share information on a greater scale.
Collaborative Reporting Reporting has always in some ways been a collaborative process between journalists and their sources. For those who involve the community in the reporting process, the payoff can be great. Journalists as Community Managers The Social Beat Social Stories. Facebook Instant. Facebook & Social Journalism by Vadim Lavrusik on Prezi. Journalists (1) Future of Media: Curation, Verification and News as a Process. 10,000 Words - Where Journalism and Technology Meet.