Just been catching up on Twitter and have found that the BBC‘s Rory Cellan Jones (aka @ruskin147 on Twitter) has loaded up his iPhone with a number of apps.
One interesting one that he has talked about is Audioboo – a audioblogging tool which can allow for the iphone as a transmission device.
Rory tested it out with a story about datebases which you can check here
Nice idea for live sharing of interviews live from the scene as a rough cut.
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A graphic visualisation of tax data from The Guardian
It’s been said before, but the web offers some very exciting ways for journalists to tell stories. The thing that has got me excited this morning is the Guardian’s visualisation of the tax that FTSE 100 companies have declared over the last four years.
Rather than having to read pages and pages of text in columns, the Guardian has presented a really useful – and attractive – interactive tool in what would appear to be a Flash-based format.
It is a pretty simple interface and a very useful tool, which provides and at a glance view of tax data from 2004-2007.
It is easy to navigate, clean and easy to read and can be navigated by either the symbols of via contextual menus – nice job Guardian techies!
But the best thing for me is not that the Guardian have done this – although it is a highly useful tool – it is they have followed the ethic of freeing up their data.
The Guardian has also chosen to offer the dataset it used to create the Flash object in an XML format.
This allows developers, media orgs or whoever wants to get their hands dirty (in a James Herriott style) to mash the data up with other sources to create some powerful artefacts.
It will be interesting to see what comes of them over the coming weeks.
Posted in Visualisation
Earlier on today the Post’s afternoon conference was streamed live using Qik. There looked to be a few technical problems, and I certainly couldn’t hear the sound.
The team has now posted the video on youtube, in the last part you can see Alison Gow holding the Qik phone.
Posted in journalism, Newspaper solutions, video, web 2.0
Tagged journalism, web 2.0, youtube
Not only have the Liverpool Post been using Cover It Live to talk to readers and web types about what is going on in the office, the decisions they’ve made – they’re also using it to break news.
1:40
Rob Merrick – Here at Westminster, I am getting over the disappointment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer cancelling his lunch with me (and a number of other reporters) in a last-gasp, panic-stricken bid to save the Crewe by-election for Labour! I jest not. The lunch was mysteriously pulled yesterday – only for the reason to be revealed this morning……Alistair Darling will make a statement to MPs on how he will compensate the 5.3 million losers from the 10p tax rate fiasco, something he clearly feels he needs to do to prop up the Labour vote in Crewe and Nantwich, where the by-election is just nine days away. All eyes will be on Gordon Brown’s Public Enemy Number One – Birkenhead MP Frank Field. Will Mr Field accept the deal – or threaten a fresh revolt? Find out after 3.30pm.3:50
Rob Merrick – The Chancellor has made his 10p statement – and swallowed a stomach-churning portion of humble pie by promising everybody a tax cut to compensate the 10p losers – somthing he specifically ruled out three weeks ago. The power of Frank Field!! And of the opinion polls in Crewe and Nantwich!!!3:59
Rob Merrick -
It’s official – the 10p revolt is over. The leading rebel – our own Frank Field – just congratulated the Chancellor for “putting an end to this issue”. Then, turning to Gordon Brown, he said “I apologise without reservation” for his weekend comments (ie. the PM is “unhappy”, “tragic” and should consider quitting before the next election). That will surely end this Brown/Field feud – after all, the PM is not one to bear a grudge, is he? (ahem)
A fascinating look at what can be done with tools like this. Certainly makes me think of the things outlined by Paul Bradshaw in his theory of the News Diamond, which shows how Web 2.0 services can be used to break the news before going on to do the high-quality follow-up in the paper.
Just asked Deputy editor Alison Gow what she thought so far (and there’s still loads more to come):
This is fun but demanding – reporters have really taken to it. And the political reporter even broke the 10p tax story on the live blog!
Going to take a bit of sorting out before the Post can decide how much of an everyday thing these tools become, but will be interesting.
I think these guys are in for some serious interest over coming days – according to their live blog the Guardian have already been in touch.
UPDATED Jemima Kiss, one of their technology reporters has been seen in the live blog. She’s also been saying what the Guardian are up to. And Laura Oliver from journalism.co.uk has just twittered she is watching the conference.
What is interesting is there was a comment about how it was impossible to tell who was a journalist or a reader of the paper (or an interested journo trainer in my case).
Good work, keep it up!
Posted in journalism, Newspaper solutions, web 2.0
Tagged Breaking news, Cover It Live, live blog
The Liverpool Daily Post opened up its newsroom to the world for the first time today, using a raft of web 2.0 solutions.
The Post’s digital show and tell started at 7am this morning with a live blog which has seen (in no chronological order) sports editor Richard Williamson, deputy features editor Laura Davis, deputy editor Alison Gow and (an early guess, as he is using the name Liverpoolnews) the paper’s online chief David Higgerson outlining what will be happening across the day. (Current time is 10am).
There have already been quite a few readers and interested types lurking in the chat – spotted so far have been Paul Bradshaw of the Online Journalism Blog (but then I’d be highly disappointed if Paul wasn’t here) and my former colleague Ali Kefford.
There have already been a number of posts asking about staffing levels and the video unit.
There are also a number of Bambuser streams going to be running through the day, including Alison Gow’s initial thoughts, so keep your eyes peeled.
The other thing you will notice is that the live blog has a survey to find out where live blog users are getting their news from -
More on this throughout the day…
UPDATED 15:40
Just come back to update this post a bit, the team have been posting for almost eight hours. Been fascinating, a real insight into what happens in the Post’s newsroom.
One of the interesting things has been the two way communication between the team and the public. Both have been asking questions and both getting replies.
One of my bits was an exchange after a post at 11.47 which outlined a story looking at the impact of oil prices. One of the interesting parts about this was the discussion of sources for the story.
David Petherick @11:57
For the Oil / Local I’d cover rising oil prices by talking to an economics prof at local uni, oil economist at, say, major bank, get a sound bite from Shell/ BP and Centrica and talk to a dozen local businesses about the impact they predict – with photos of a couple at least.
David then outlined potential developments, looking at council costs – and use of council limos.
A quick example of the way that the Post has engaged with the blog and those commenting on it.
And typically for PR – who are often early adopters of social technologies, the paper’s fashion crew were offered the use of a city-centre bar for their Sex in the City style photoshoot.
UPDATE 16:38
Just a quick link to Alison Gow’s bambuser page which she has been using to stream video of the various conferences that have happened during the day. She’s also been using Qik and was just about to go on stream with a conference as this post was being updated.
Posted in journalism, Newspaper solutions, web 2.0
Tagged journalism, Liverpool Daily Post, web 2.0
