Beatblogging.org beats all

I'm completely obsessed by all the info that keeps pouring out of beatblogging.org.
I've mentioned it here before and it's an absolutely brilliant investigation of the new journalism tools afforded by the Web 2.0 world.

There's a good interview with Janet Kornblum on how she has used MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Technorati to research stories.

Interesting stuff. And really helpful in boosting our thinking about the tools digital journalists have available to them.

My Christmas list

So much to choose from. But here goes.


I don't - as a rule - wear t-shirts, but even I could go for these:


A Worst. Keynote. Ever. t-shirt

Or a Wi-Fi Detector t-shirt ("The glowing bars on the front of the shirt dynamically change as the surrounding wi-fi signal strength fluctuates").

Or...




... for sad days - you could get me this social media shirt which features a list of the 79 most popular social networking sites. "Wearers can use a marker pen to tick off all the sites they belong to, then display all to all and sundry when out"

How journalists can use social networks to improve beat reporting

If you haven't already seen it, do check out BeatBlogging.org, an experiment to explore combining beat journalism with social networks.

The aim of the project is explained thus:

Are there network effects in beat reporting? Across the US, a dozen reporters (with beats) are going to try to find out—simultaneously. This will improve their odds of succeeding.

This is a simple project testing a single idea: Maybe a beat reporter could do a way better job if there was a “live” social network connected to the beat, made up of people who know the territory the beat covers, and want the reporting on that beat to be better.

That’s the entire idea—so far. Beat reporting with a social network: can we get it to work?. And here is the rest of it.

Check it out on Beatblogging.org where the journalists are blogging as they go. Fascinating stuff.

The Millennial Generation

Back to Online Information 2007 and a presentation from Mary Ellen Bates (describing herself with charming self-effacement as the "digital grannie") on the Millennial Generation. Definitions vary, but these people never saw the Berlin Wall and never knew life without the Internet. What is their attitude to information and search?

From electronic games, the millennial generation has learned that:

• failure doesn't hurt
• risk is real
• leaders are irrelevant
• coaches are unnecessary

They thrive on ambiguity. Millennials have less interest in "authoritative" sources and trust their ability to evaluate the worth of an information source.

I was very conscious of her observation that personal networks are key to the way they search for information. This reassures me that the development of work and industry networks that we are undertaking is exactly the right way forward for tomorrow's workers.

So how should workplaces accommodate millennials?

• Give them room to explore
• Offer experiential learning
• Learning is play, not an investment

Mary Ellen's website is here and her presentation here.

Footnote

Marie L Radford of Rutgers School of Communications, Information and Library Studies shared some interesting research outcomes on behaviour of Millennials.

They score lower (ie do less often) than adults on:
- thanking
- self-disclosure
- closing rituals

But higher (ie do more often) than adults on:
- Agreeing to suggestions
- using lower case
- greeting rituals
- admitting lack of knowledge
- interjections
- slang

Millennials trust peer reviews twice as much as the average adult.

Social media and organisations

I was drooling at the mouth at Online Information 2007 to hear about IBM's intranet.

Rather than merely being a directory, it's like a social networking space where you can tag you colleagues with things that they know about or characterise them. I noticed that Roo Reynolds was tagged with "nice-guys-who-finish-first" but this seems to me to be an intensely practical way of organising the organisation around the individual and enabling them to organise themselves around their internal networks. It's mashed up with maps and has social graphs and stuff. Very cool.

Also, any employee at IBM can have an internal or external blog if they want one. They just have to follow the rules, that's all.

Another social network acquisition by Murdoch

The rumours that NewsCorp was in the process of acquiring LinkedIn seems not to have been true. According to Reuters:

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is not holding takeover discussions with LinkedIn, a fast-growing online social network for professionals, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday.

The source shot down news media reports that the two were discussing a deal worth about $1 billion (484 million pounds). The two companies had been in talks for possible future partnerships, the source added.

News Corp and LinkedIn declined to comment.

But yesterday the media megacorp did announce the acquisition of another social network .

It's a religious social network called BeliefNet and it seems very catholic with a small "c" (as in interdenominational, eclectic).

According to Reuters:

The site targets users holding myriad faiths including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and followers of Falun Gong.

Fox sees Beliefnet as a way to distribute its content, from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's faith-based programming to HarperCollins's Zondervan and HarperOne brands.

"Eclectic" doesn't quite cover it:

Santas across Australia have thrown their jolliness by the wayside in protest of a new instruction that they say "ha, ha, ha" instead of the traditional "ho, ho, ho." According to The Daily Telegraph, Santa is "a rebel with a 'claus.'"

Westaff, a Santa training agency that supplies Santas to hundreds of stores across Australia, has told its trainees that "ho, ho, ho" could frighten children and be considered derogatory to women because of the connotation of the word "ho."

Anyway, the point is, as I predicted years ago, social networks are hot targets, especially for content providers looking for markets.

London 2012 and Web 2.0

The organising committee for the London Olympic Games in 2012 seems to be ahead of the rest of us regarding the future of the Internet.

Apparently Locog has plans to harness the power of web 2.0 to encourage engagement and interaction from the public. Business Week reports that the committee is looking a digital photo sharing as just one of its new media channels which "will be the number-one way for people to share, access and participate in the Games".

The number one way to participate in the Games? Fantastic. Count me in. Locog says:

Social networking is a way that can make the Games more relevant to a younger audience. We are thinking you have to actually embrace that and build a framework for people to do that. You could, for example, take a narrative of an athlete coming 54th in the marathon.

The Londonist amusingly wonders how this might work exactly.

But two observations:

1. With the speed of evolution of the Internet, there is pretty much only a "now" for most of us. What's 2012 going to look like? It's five years away. I'm struggling to remember what the Internet looked like in 2002 but I'm sure nobody could see 2007 from there. My advice (not that anyone in their right mind would ask, of course) would be: don't go overboard with the planning at this stage.
2. Something will happen anyway. You won't even need to facilitate it. As long as people want to do it they will find a way. Don't try to own it.
   

However, I admire their pluck. And if they do know something I don't about 2012 would they please get in touch