Which social media tools are most useful to journalists? October 16, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentDigital strategist Amy Webb in the Knight Foundation newsletter:
"… I challenge anyone to prove that the future of journalism won't somehow involve mobile technology. My company is currently researching a number of mobile tools that would use GPS and other location-based services to target information that can be used on the fly. Yes, it's great to know what crime is happening in my neighborhood or which local bar is renewing its liquor license. But what if I'm in someone else's neighborhood? What if there's a fire burning nearby? A bad traffic accident up the road?
[…] what if my mobile phone had an application that pinpointed exactly where I was on a map, and then delivered the most recent news on subjects that I preferenced? It would be a hyper-sensitive aggregator of everything that I cared about that could dynamically update and change, based on my location. This would be useful to journalists… news organizations …and to consumers who want to be more civically engaged."
Donald Clark Plan B: txtng (the gr8 db8) October 6, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentA review of David Crystal's study of texting: "It’s good to see some sound, academic sense in a field that’s dominated by amateur newspaper hacks like John Humphries (in the Daily Mail), John Sutherland (in the Guardian) and Lynn Truss, who see texting as some sort of illegitimate attack on language. Disgruntled Boomers, who know little or nothing about either texting or liguistics love to crow on about how it’s debasing the language and producing generation of illiterate idiots. A widely distributed newspaper story in 2003 stated that a student had written an entire essay in textspeak. Turns out this was made up and the essay has never been found. […] But the true worth of the book is in tearing down popular misconceptions. Texting, according to Crystal is:
Not new
Not restricted to the young
Doesn’t abbreviate as much as you think it does
Helps rather than hinders literacy
Produces wonderful forms of language"