Citizen Paine | Citizen Journalism

New site aims to harness reader selections

Common Media has launched Common Times, a social bookmarking site that will try to highlight news stories based on reader interest.

The site has sections on International, United States, Business, Technology, Science, Environment, Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Editorial. While it does not have geographic-based sections, it does encourage users to include location names as topics when adding stories.

This page describes how it works.

Making a move

Starting Monday, I will be the editor for online news and citizen media for the Contra Costa Times. It's a new position, and I'm very excited about this opportunity.

It's a return to where I spent the '90s as a reporter, assistant metro editor, county bureau chief and, finally, online editor. The title shows how things have changed since I left Contra Costa in 2000 to help start GetLocalNews.com.

I won't say much more here about the new gig. You'll have to check in periodically at ContraCostaTimes.com to see what we're up to.

For GetLocalNews, I wish only the best. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help conceive and build a citizen journalism network before we even knew to call it that.

The future of this blog? Don't know yet.

Don't just find the best stuff -- preserve it

Steven Madoff at Contentsphere, picking up on Leon Sterling's Is Blogging Killing Democracy? post at New West, writes about the fleeting nature of digitized thoughts:

The brave promise of this new content source is that it does (at least) three things: first, it levels the opportunity to publish; second, it adds a multitude of voices and perspectives; third, it brings precisely this evanescence, this sense of fleeting thought and all of its freshness to readers. And a fourth thing that is inevitable: it will turn readers into writers.

Sterling worries about the lack of archiving of internet communication. "Today, our beliefs are like fireflies – they shine for a few brief moments, but then they disappear, and no one knows where they went," he says. Madoff suggests that the best of today's digital writing may remain available to future generations as established online publications embrace citizen journalism and, possibly, put some of that content into print.

The Internet Archive is trying to preserve what we read, watch and listen to online. Read more here.

Sterling's comments, though, also deal with email, which may not be retained the way letters used to be.

More readers, as Madoff notes, are turning into writers. Yet, preserving our thoughts is far more complicated than when we used paper and pen.

Do people retain personal emails with the thought that their children or grandchildren (or future historians) might want to read them? Do they print the best to ensure that their survivors won't have to wade through a maze of Outlook email folders or, worse, have to extract old emails from a format or storage medium that's no longer in use? Did people learn a lesson from the legal battle that a dead marine's family waged this year and won, getting Yahoo! to provide access to the young man's web-based email account?

When I was growing up in the Midwest, we used to try to catch fireflies and put them in a bottle to try to make a bright light. This analogy is breaking down a bit, but what I take from it is the value of picking out the shining lights and finding a way to preserve them before they fade. (I think there's a way to work mosquitoes into this thought, but I'm going to stop right here.)

UPDATE: Moments after posting this piece, this JD Lasica item shows up, Digital Deeds Never Die, linking to this Business Week article. Maybe the analogy needs to switch to cockroaches.

One in five web users prefer online papers

A new Nielsen study, reported by Reuters via News.com, shows that 21 percent of Web users "primarily use online versions of newspapers, while 72 percent still read print editions."

This is a first-time study, so it doesn't directly show trends. But, as the Reuters story points out, "The statistics reflect a broad trend in the newspaper publishing industry. U.S. newspaper circulation has been falling as audiences increasingly turn to the Internet for news--both on newspaper-run sites and through companies such as Yahoo and Google...."

The report does show trend data for specific sites: In the past year, NYTimes.com's audience is up 25 percent, USAToday.com up 15 percent, WashingtonPost.com up 10 percent.

Another high school attack caught on camera

Whether or not you call it "citizen journalism," here's one more act of someone observing, recording and disseminating information -- and having an impact. The Contra Costa Times (registration required) reports "A group of teenage boys beat an instructional aide at De Anza High School after he tried to stop a fight ... . The attack, captured on a camera phone by an unknown party, circulated via e-mail among parents and staff Friday ...."

It was at another school in the same school district, West Contra Costa Unified, where last month someone videotaped an attack in the Hercules Middle/High School bathroom and posted it on putfile.com. (As an education reporter, I covered this school district for the Contra Costa Times from 1987 to 1991.)

The images in the latest incident also were video, according to a KCBS story.

Backlash against 'free' writing gigs

It's getting easier and easier and cheaper and cheaper to build a web site, but it's still hard to get content. Hence, I think we're seeing increase of late in the number of people advertisting on Craigslist for writers willing to work for free. Today,  there's some backlash:

If you want our work, pay us, and not in Starbucks credits. We are trying to make a living too, and it so happens our work is worth something more than a pat on the back and a by-line.

The author is keeping a sense of humor about it:

Compensation: If you apply for this job right now, we'll throw in a free sofa, two months supply of gummy bears, and a bag of Cheetos.

UPDATE:
Here's yet another, which offers "possible compensation."

Got my $14.95-a-month DSL

SBC wasn't exactly a push-over when I called today to ask for the new promotional rate for my DSL service, but I got 'em to cave when I mentioned that I was exploring alternatives. It's going to be fun to watch the price war and, as important, see what effect it has on the numbers who have broadband.

I was paying $29.95. My one-year contract wasn't even up for another couple weeks when I called SBC today. Had a hard time getting through. At first, the customer service rep offered $26.95. That's when I pulled out the big guns, saying, "Well, at that price, I wouldn't make a new one-year commitment, and I think I'm going to take a closer look at cable. What about that $14.95 offer?"

She put me on hold to consult with a supervisor, returned quickly and gave me the lower price. So, I re-upped.

I also asked about SBC's higher-speed DSL option, but it isn't offered in my neighborhood. That goes for $24.95 a month under the promotional offer.

The site that must not be named

A Connecticut paper's coverage of an upstart online competitor reminds me of the very different tack that a local paper here in Benicia, Calif., takes whenever it is forced to refer to GetLocalNews.com's BeniciaNews.com.

The Benicia Herald, which has no web site, stubbornly refuses to make any direct mention of BeniciaNews, which was our first site when we started GetLocalNews.com five years ago.

Here's how silly it gets: When a former city manager recently filed a claim against a councilman over a comment made in the BeniciaNews.com message board, the Benicia Herald (not the site linked in this graf) referred only to "a local web site."

I'm not sure the newspaper ever has mentioned BeniciaNews.com by name. I told the editor he's making us feel a bit like the evil Lord Voldemort, who, in the Harry Potter books, is known as "he who must not be named."

craigslist ad: 'Seeking Paranormal Staff Writers'

The ad reads: "Haunted Times Magazine is seeking staff writers world-wide."

Don't you think they could broaden their search?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

BTW, has anyone else noticed the proliferation of unpaid writing gigs advertised on craigslist. Haunted Times at least offers, wow, "Exposure that may lead to per-word payment."

Blogdigger Local: yes; Blogosphere: not there yet

The blogosphere may need to ripen a bit before Blogdigger's new local blog search tool becomes useful. The tool itself has some sweet features, and it seems to have good potential both for the user and advertiser.

To do a search, you must indicate a location (by city or zip), while keywords are optional. I did more than a dozen searches, using small, medium and large cities and a variety of topics from restaurants to sports to gardening.

Here's one of the better search results. I looked for "sports" and "San Francisco, CA" and got this as the third of 99 hits sorted by date (you also can sort by relevancy, which actually might be the better default setting):

May 03, 2005

Brainwagon Radio: A Brief Jaunt To Reno

Where your host finally gets around to recording another podcast detailing his brief weekend trip to Reno. Find out what sports book kind of blows, which ones are okay, and what hotel had rooms overlooking the scenic air conditioner on the roof. You can also find out what I’m doing this weeken...

Tags: General , Audioblogs and Podcasting , Brainwagon Radio

brainwagon [ Feed -         Focus -         Exclude ] by Mark at 10:40 AM

17.4 miles from san francisco, ca - Map It!

This particular blogger posts on many topics (note the "Tags"), including the Oakland A's. OK, so I searched "Sports" and "San Francisco" and found someone interested in the A's. That is cool.

The tags are useful, and I like the Feed, Focus and Exclude options. They're fairly intuitive.

As I said, the results seemed even better when I selected "relevancy" as the default sort.

When I searched on smaller suburban Bay Area communities, I struck out for the most part. Whether the problem is the number of bloggers in those communities or Blogdigger's ability to index them, I don't know.

I do think this tool is one worth watching. It's already gotten the attention of MarketingVOX, blogger Susan Mernit and of  Search Engine Watch,  which notes that you may want to use GeoURL to help search tools locate your blog.