Interview - Chris Messina

At the Netsquared conference last week I got to interview several people, like Bryan from Ask A Lawmaker.

I was very excited to see Chris Messina at the event. Chris is still a member of my “Community Dream Team” and I was intrigued by his new gig - working on DiSo full time. I remember when I first heard about the DiSo project: Distributed social networking. It’s the kind of stuff that, when explained and grokked, thrusts you into the future of the web.

But don’t take my word for it….

Excited to see what happens and wishing the best to Chris and Tara, who I’m told will be keeping Citizen Agency running.

Interview - Ask A Lawmaker

I love this idea “Ask Your Lawmker.” It is participatory and pro-am. Very similar to Yoosk in the UK whose founder wrote this NewAssignment.net piece, but AskYourLawmaker.org has a more refined focused angle - You want to ask lawmakers a question and journalists can track them down and get the answers.

But don’t take my word for it…..(any child of the 80’s should get that reference. First comment that pins it, wins).

(update#1: I do know from talking with Tim Hood at Yoosk that this is very much in tune with what they want to do).

Update#2: In the comments Tim updates me that this is the work of Chapter Three LLC. I didn’t know that writing the post - but that’s how small a world it is.

links for 2008-05-28

• Young New Yorkers Make a Brand New Start of It, on the Cheap
  Starting Salaries but New York Tastes: I remember living like this. It was great to be in NY. But nicer to be in SF - a slightly lower overhead which means I can eat more!
  (tags: NY, newyork,)
• Newspaper war in Silicon Valley
  An old-fashioned newspaper war is about to break out among a trio of free publications in the heart of one of the least print-centric places in the universe, Silicon Valley.
  (tags: spotjournalism)

links for 2008-05-26

• Seesmic: Why it’s so important to just frackin’ start
  Bottom line? As an entrepreneur you have to follow your nose and don’t worry if you dump or change your original model. Evolution is the revolution.

  However, if you don’t start you can’t iterate.

Clay Shirky - the Creative Commons Version of Corporations

Clay Shirky blows my mind again via J.D. Lasica.

links for 2008-05-25

• Fund A Beat | American News Project
  And so it goes: Community Funded Reporting is being adopted before I can even sink my teeth in.
  (tags: spotjournalism)

Carnival of Journalism - Two, Count Em, Two Interviews!

I’m very excited for this month’s Carnival of Jouralism hosted by Ryan Sholin, just after San Francisco’s own Bay to Breakers (a local Mardi Gras). To celebrate I have not one…. but TWO videos. I’m going crazy, I’m giving them away!!!!!

UPDATE: After the videos I’ll attempt to answer a question Ryan posed to the group: "What should news organizations stop doing, today, immediately, to make more time for innovation?"

The first video is Jonathan Dube who has a resume that should drop your jaw. The main reason I wanted to interview Jonathan was to get some info about two great resources for journalists: CyberJournalist.net, which he founded and the Online News Association where he is the current president. Both deserve your attention.

I love Cyber Journalist. If you like Romenesko, you should check CyberJ’s link blog. Instead of being up to date on the latest layoffs and snafu’s you’ll start hearing about the newest tech trends and media tools. And hey, you can put yourself on the unofficial list of J-bloggers.

The second interview is with Martin Moore, who I’ve crossed paths with but finally got to know a little better a few weeks ago when we both were in Vegas to accept the Knight News Challenge grants (quick shameless plug for Spot.Us). In the video Martin talks about what he won the grant for, why it’s important to journalism and what it’s like to work with Sir Tim Berners Lee, who invented something you’ve probably heard of.

So - for your viewing pleasure: Videos one and two.

And now for the thinking part of this post: What should news organizations stop doing, today, immediately, to make more time for innovation?

Stop buying Associated Press articles.

I know that’s a controversial one - but here’s how I see it.

• Associated Press has become its own news organization. It’s no longer looking out for newspapers, it’s trying to figure out how it, as an organization, is relevant on the web. That’s great and all - but for a newspaper, that means it’s second on the AP’s list of priorities.
• Nobody likes seeing the same AP stories on their newspaper. It makes your paper look cheap.
• They are called hyperlinks. They are blue. They are useful. Look Ma’ - here’s an AP story. And it didn’t cost me a thing to link to it!

Money spent on the AP could be money saved and then used for… Innovation!

I sometimes use the AP as an analogy to what I hope Spot.Us could be at a local level. I envision Spot.Us being a marketplace for local news stories and the finished products could be run by news organizations. The main differences being (a: local content means that at most only a small handful of news organizations would also run the same content (b. the content would be free to run for any news organization unless they wanted an exclusive on the story at which point they wouldn’t be paying Spot.Us - their money would go back to the community (their readers) - and the community would know the final story was essentially sponsored by X news organization.

As I see it: This would allow newspapers to run more original local content, save money and build serious brand loyalty. The AP does none of these.

links for 2008-05-23

• Excitement, Questions About Spot.us
  The best constructive criticism so far of Spot.Us: Spot.us could help define a new era of quality, independent journalism — but it will do so as an open marketplace, not a highly-managed assignment desk.
  (tags: spotjournalism)

Interview - Andrew from ThePoint.com

I don’t hide the fact that my new project, Spot.Us, is inspired by other sites. Sometimes the best innovation is plagiarism. While my focus is on journalism - sites like Kiva.org or DonorsChoose have proven that micro-donations can work. At Spot Us’ blog you can see some of the sites I’ve been studying in the right hand column.

One site that has had my attention is "ThePoint.com" which is playing off "the tipping point." It’s a bit different from Kiva, Spot US or Donors Choose in that there isn’t a specific niche it’s trying to answer - you can start a campaign on ‘The Point’ about anything you want. It’s strength is in the way it works: Collective action only takes place AFTER the tipping point is reached.

I was referred to ThePoint by several people. Hat tip to Muhammad Saleem for being the first and for introducing me to Andrew Mason, the sites founder. Below is part of our AIM interview.

links for 2008-05-21

• Lost Media, Found Media
  I get called a “found media-ite” - cool! Overall - a great article on what seems to be two camps in journalism.