There has been much written about how Reuters has a correspondent in Second Life, reporting on events in the virtual world. Now there is a news bulletin created using Second Life, reporting on events about Second Life. Called SLObserver, both the website and news cast is in French. It is remarkable how the virtual news cast resembles a real life news cast. There is an attractive female host, insets over

Vancouver-based NowPublic has received a boost, striking a deal with the Associated Press. Details of how it will work are sketchy. From AP’s point of view, it wants to tap into the NowPublic’s 60,000 contributors from 140 countries to complement the work of professional journalists. According to AP Deputy Managing Editor for Multimedia Lou Ferrara, contributions to AP news reports “could range from simple eyewitness accounts to originally produced content”.

It’s that time of the year for a mix of news executives, venture capitalists, advocacy groups and grassroots media to meet and discuss the relationship between journalism, user media and the internet. The WeMedia conference in Miami is organised by iFocus, a non-profit which looks at how digital technology is changing the media. PBS’s Mark Glaser written a good scene-setter in which he neatly sums up what WeMedia is all

One of the big UK tabloids, The Mirror, has relaunched its website with a heavy emphasis on video. Online editor Steve Purcell boasts that the site has “hundreds of channels of streaming video“. It is following a trend among newspapers to offer much more video online. There is something strange about going to a UK newspaper and seeing an American TV news report. That’s because the video comes from companies

As a professor of multiplatform journalism, I spent a lot of time thinking about the skills our students will need when they graduate in 2008. Ryan Sholin from the Santa Cruz Sentinel has some great advice for budding reporters. This is what he is looking for: I would want someone who knows enough HTML to write their own web update into a content management system without needing training. I would

The best explanation of Web 2.0 and its impact on our lives, all in under five minutes of video, from Kansas State University cultural ethnographer, Michael Wesch

If you are interested in the state of international broadcasting, have a look at a new collection of essays called Global Voice. Among the contributors are Will Hutton, Richard Lambert and Hilary Benn. The introduction is by the BBC’s Richard Sambrook, who says the publication is only having a small print run. So he has handily uploaded a PDF to his blog and provided a link for it

A quick mention to the new redesigned Times Online. The veteran newspaper sports a clean, classic look, reminiscent of some WordPress blogs. Times Online Editor in Chief Anne Spackman explains how the paper went about the transformation: In one sense, building a new website on the scale of Times Online is more like civil engineering than journalism. The Times has also overhauled its approach to user media. The navigation sports

Why are people still surprised when a new report comes out and says young people do not relate to print? One of the latest was a report from the Carnegie-Knight Task Force on the Future of Journalism Education. It found that 57% teachers use online news in the classroom with some frequency. In the words of one of the teachers: Students do not relate to newspapers at all, any more

Talk to a journalist about tagging and their eyes are bound to glaze over. But at a time when search is becoming the way people navigate the internet, there is a greater need than ever for this metadata on stories. According to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the people formerly known as the audience are doing it for themselves. The study (PDF) found that 28%