An analysis of 43,738 tweets from 1,443 users offers some valuable insights into emerging communication norms on Twitter. The study (PDF) by researchers Paul André of Carnegie Mellon, Michael Bernstein of MIT, and Kurt Luther of Georgia Tech aimed to uncover what makes for a good message on Twitter. The team found that the most valued tweets were informative, funny and encouraged conversation. Perhaps surprising, they also found that self-promotional messages also elicited a positive response. By comparison,
PDF For this month’s Carnival of Journalism, Michael Rosenblum asks if a good journalist can be a good capitalist? The question is timely, given the raft of new entrepreneurial programs at journalism schools. There has always been an entrepreneurial streak in journalism, typified in the freelance journalist who makes a living by pitching and selling their work to a range of clients. Journalists, by necessity, have to be entrepreneurial in finding
The demise of Eastman Kodak is a story of a company which did not take on the challenges of disruptive innovation. After 133 years, the company has filed for bankruptcy. Essentially, Kodak was caught out by a combination of factors. The technologies that enable us to represent with world in still images changed radically with the development of digital cameras. The rise of digital was bad news for a company that made
In a column, Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton asked if the newspaper was innovating too fast. Pexton noted how “hardly a week goes by without the Web site or newspaper launching some feature, or a venture to attract more revenue, or a blog, or a social media innovation.” He later added, “I’m wondering, and readers are too, whether there’s just a bit too much innovation, too fast.” In response, the
The most popular posts for 2011 are dominated by Twitter and social media, as this has increasingly become a focus on my academic research. But the top five are older posts from 2007, 2008 and 2009 that continue to resonate with readers. Principles of journalism as a word cloud What a word cloud says about this blog How to find out anything about anyone online The new roles for journalists
There is a seasonal theme to this month’s Carnival of Journalism, hosted by The Guardian Developer blog. Journalists are being asked when would be the best present from programmers and developers, and vice versa for developers. It is a key question as it focuses on the intersection of emerging communication technologies and journalistic norms and practices. The way journalists do what they do has always been affected by technology, from the
The Washington Post’s Mark Luckie gave an insight into his role during a session on innovative storytelling at the Journalism Interactive conference. Luckie is national innovations editor at the Post. His job is to be responsible for web section of the national coverage, figuring out a web strategy for the stories that reporters are working on and editors are planning. Luckie explained how the Post had moved away from the web as an
Amy Webb of @webbmedia took the Journalism Interactive conference on a tour of emerging tech trends for academia. She started off by talking about gestural technology, showing as an example a Wacom product that allows you to draw on paper and upload the image digitally. Webb also mentioned Livescribe which plays back audio from notes of an interview. It also has OCR so can convert notes into digital text. She showed
The wealth of multimedia or social media storytelling tools available can be bewildering for journalists. Often seasoned pros asked me, what is the one thing I should learn and add to my reporting toolkit? To my mind, that’s the right attitude but the wrong question. Journalists need to be open to new ways of telling stories and engaging with audiences. But it is not about adding a new tool to
Emily Bell, professor of Professional Practice and Director of the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism at the Columbia School of Journalism, kicked off the Future of Journalism conference discussing the many futures of journalism. Talking about how we have viewed the profession, Bell argued that journalism is becoming less defined by the businesses that support it than by the activities it involves. She made the good point that arguing who is a journalist