Happy Independence Day! However, on July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail: “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha in the History of America. I am apt […]
MSNBC.com bets on Readers
I can’t much imagine how MSNBC.com could have designed a news site seemingly more unfriendly to generating static pageviews—unless there is some secret Google gaming formula. The secret sauce is there, and I love it. MSNBC.com’s updated news site pulls readers in rather than sending them out.
Coffee Shop Newsrooms
My fantasy newsroom is one where the public comes and goes (within reason, of course) and story ideas flow freely in all directions. In England in the 1600s, news grew out of coffeehouses this way. Decades later in the U.S. colonies, the venue of choice switched to pubs. (I like that journalism in America is tied up with drinking. Explains a lot.)
Here’s a big shout-out to the Freehold, New Jersey initiative above. I’m rooting for (literal) conversational journalism par excellence.
Doreen Marchionni
IKEA Kitty
In late April I purchased the Olympus PEN E-P2 micro four-thirds digital camera. I’m ready to start posting photos after resolving problems with a defective kit lens.
Apple of My Eye
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/12819723] Short film “Apple of My Eye” demonstrates how good storytelling isn’t about the tools but the storyteller. Michael Koerbel shot and edited this delightful video on an iPhone 4. No PC or other […]
What’s in a Name?
Nick Santilli asks the right question: iPhone OS Got a New Name, So When Will iTunes?. Synchronization is the killer application for the connected world, but Apple’s major sync tool is strangely placed: iTunes, which long […]
All-Purpose Media
Until the Net arrived, the history of media had been a tale of fragmentation. Different technologies progressed down different paths, leading to a proliferation of special-purpose tools. Books and newspapers could present text and images, […]
Add Flow to the Blogging Stock
Today, I start an experiment here that will take the blog off track a bit, but which could better build readership. “What?” You ask. “Joe, don’t you have another experiment going with comments turned off?” Yes, and that one ends next week.
The experiment comes to answer a question: What is the best way to be the better blogger? I need to make money writing at a time when writing is becoming a commodity service. Increasingly, journalists like me are obsolete. The answer I seek may be to the wrong question; perhaps blogging isn’t the writing I or many people like me should pursue. But I try.
Future of the PC as Seen From 2003
Sometimes the past feels all the more distant.
In November 2003, Jupitermedia held a small event competing with the then massive and now defunct Comdex. As a senior analyst working for the company, I was asked to give presentation: “Evolution of the PC.” The topic is so broad I griped: “Why don’t you just give me a bag of rocks and tell me to hit one of the great lakes.” So much about computing has changed since that presentation, the content seems simply ancient to me.
Eight Reasons I Love Pop17
If Sarah Austin is the future of journalism, I have hope that accuracy, authenticity and accountability may yet survive. Yesterday, Sarah tumbleblogged something she posted 16 days earlier that I missed: “Blogging Code of Ethics.”
Now there’s a strange concept: Blogging and ethics. It’s strange because I’ve seen too many blogs acting as marketing fronts—and too many others scraping other sites’ content and reposting it for profit. In neither case does much fact checking go along with the blogs. I identified the problem in posts “The Difference Between Blogging and Journalism” and “Gossipers of the InterWeb.”
Trashed iPad/iPhone
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPJSjnizxu4] Storytelling is an art form, but it isn’t solely the purview of artists. Video “Trashed iPhone and iPad!” is good example. The video isn’t the most sophisticated filmmaking, but the story is compelling: […]
From the Depths of 'The Shallows'
It is our intellectual technologies that have the greatest and most lasting power over what and how we think. They are our most intimate tools, the ones we use for self-expression, for shaping personal and […]