You’ll find conference, awards and other updates and our latest thinking and blogging about media and the connected society at wemedia.com. See you there.
[...]You’ll find conference, awards and other updates and our latest thinking and blogging about media and the connected society at wemedia.com. See you there.
[...](Here’s the update sent to our friends today via email. If you aren’t on the list you can use the form on the right rail of our new web site to sign up.)
We’ve been on the move in Europe and the U.S. in recent weeks – and also hunkered [...]
In an open letter to craigslist, Steve Outing asks its founders and operators to help save the newspaper industry from itself. My response:
Steve,
It takes real chutzpah to ask Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster of craigslist to help newspapers salvage their classifieds businesses and thus save democracy, or at [...]
Last night Mary and I attended an outdoor concert at the Wolf Trap Center for Performing Arts with friends. On a perfect summer night, we claimed a patch of grass on the hillside, uncorked a couple bottles of wine with a gourmet picnic dinner, and talked about the things that [...]
Last night Mary and I attended an outdoor concert at the Wolf Trap Center for Performing Arts with friends. On a perfect summer night, we claimed a patch of grass on the hillside, uncorked a couple bottles of wine with a gourmet picnic dinner, and talked about the things that [...]
I’ve suggested, among others, that leadership – or, more accurately, the lack of it — is at the heart of the news industry’s woes. The current generation of CEO’s and publishers blame unforeseen external forces – impending changes in media, economics, technology and society that were clear to others more [...]
An isometric landscape, Web Trend Map 3 pins down nearly 300 of the most successful and influential websites plotted against the metaphor of the greater Tokyo area train map. Different train lines correspond to web trends such as innovation, news, social networks, and so on. Whimsy and inside jokes [...]
The thing about innovation is that you know it when you see it.
One version comes from Tribune Co., which has been exuberant about becoming “an oasis of creativity.” Newsies have encouraged us to watch Tribco’s Orlando Sentinel where Sam Zell’s new regime of former broadcasters is touting [...]
Nokia, which is obsessive about consumer research, is showing the world how to innovate from the outside-in by collecting ideas globally for free at or low cost.
At Nokia Beta Labs, the Finnish handset maker lets users test the latest smartphone software. Instead of people recording silly Web cam videos [...]
A lot of people have emailed me about my remarks, considered provocative by some, at the Interactive Media Conference in Las Vegas. Here’s what I said:
“We trust people to drive moving vehicles at high speeds on our highways. We arm them and ask them to fight wars in the [...]
No need to fret over those troubling layoffs, sinking revenues, tanking valuations, migrating audiences, declining influence, or even that pesky Internet. Newspapers are a growth business. So proclaims World Association of Newspapers CEO Timothy Balding. Inky execs apparently like Tim’s story. They turned out in record numbers for WAN’s [...]
Our annual gathering for the global We Media Community will return to Miami Feb. 24-26, 2009. Registration and sponsorship details will be coming soon. Meanwhile, here’s the archive so you can catch up on what happened at this year’s edition.
[...]Start the week off right and consider the big issues and ideas that will define your future and our shared future. Start with a good laugh, or a good cry. In either case, start here with Charlie Rose. Charlie is a well-known interviewer on US public television. Charlie once said, [...]
Members of the We Media Community are invited to drinks and a conversation in Washington, DC, on Thursday, May 15. Thanks to our friends at the University of Miami (where we conduct our global forum each February) for extending this invitation, and thanks if you’re interested and can [...]
Last week we described the newspaper business as a satellite falling out of orbit. This week it appears to be burning up in the atmosphere.
The latest Audit Bureau of Circulations report showed a 3.5 percent drop in circulation – to about 50 million — for the largest U.S. newspapers [...]
Christy Bradford, who taught me how to be an editor, died late last week at her home in Kansas City. She had been teaching journalism at the University of Kansas since 1999.
I love the description of Christy by her students at KU: “combination den mother/drill sergeant.” It was the [...]
Is Craigslist insignificant? I’ve weighed in to a small debate:
Publishers underestimated Craigslist once with devastating results. Newspapers, which derive nearly 80 of their revenue from classified advertising, lost half or more of their lucrative classified business over the past five years, a loss that now threatens the economic [...]
For the past week I’ve been playing with the private “alpha” of a new social bookmarking tool called socialmedian. You can also give it a try. To register as a tester, use this code on the signup page: wemedia. (This code is available for 100 testers).
[...]
It is a big deal, or at least it used to be, when the nation’s publishers and editors gather at an annual conference to talk about business, craft, the role of newspapers in democracy, information technology, and the future. The latter has dominated the conversation lately so the mood has [...]
Here are the slides (PDF) from Dale’s presentation today at the NewsPaper Association of America conference in Washington, DC. (Current membership and login required for download. To join or renew, click here.)
newspapers, presentations, social media [...]This week the leaders of the newspaper industry gather in Washington for a joint convention on the big issues impacting newspapers and the world.
As in most election years, presidential candidates will address the nations leading publishers and publishers. Senators McCain, Obama and Clinton will speak Monday and Tuesday. [...]
Tech entrepreneur Joi Ito is the new CEO of Creative Commons, the alternative copyright licensing organization that has spawned widespread sharing and reuse of digital content and educational materials – like course lecture notes available for free from MIT. The founder of Creative Commons, Stanford Law School professor [...]
What would you do to provide a better news service for your community? Or for any community? David Cohn, one of our We Media Fellows at this year’s We Media Miami conference, is trying to ferret out good ideas for one community, San Jose, California, from an obvious source: [...]
Jordan’s Queen Rania is answering questions about stereotypes of the Arab World on YouTube. She says “I want people to know the real Arab world, to see it unedited, unscripted and unfiltered, to see the personal side of my region, to know the places and faces and rituals and cultures [...]
Susan Mernit has been a friend, collaborator and advisor for many years. I’m pleased to announce she’s taking on a new role at iFOCOS – Entrepreneur-in-Residence. It’s a virtual residency. She’ll still be based in Palo Alto, where until recently she was a Senior Director of Product Development for Yahoo! [...]
Here’s a chance for members of the We Media Community to get involved in something new, practical and ambitious. Bread for the City, a food bank, health clinic and social services provider for the poor in Washington, DC, wants to use the tools of media creation and distribution [...]
With Jeff Gomez, author, Print is Dead and Roger Black, Principal, Danilo-Black
Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one, two, and three.
We Media Miami 2008 [...]With Richard Sarnoff, President, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, and William C. Weiss, Chairman &CEO, The Promar Group, Chairman, iFOCOS
Blogged by Barbara Iverson: post one and two.
We Media Miami 2008 [...]With the traditional media losing its monopoly on information, opinion and storytelling, all sectors of society now have the power through media and communications to make themselves heard. How can we use this new power to make the world a better place?
Session Chair: Andrew Nachison, Co-Founder, iFOCOS
J. [...]It’s supposed to be the YouTube-MySpace-power-to-the-people campaign. So why are online political junkies so frustrated with what they’ve seen so far?
Session Chair: Brian Reich, author, Media Rules!
Ellen Miller, Sunlight Foundation Catherine Geanuracos, Live Earth Carolyn Washburn, Executive Editor, The Des Moines Register Michael [...]Who can you trust in the We Media landscape? Where’s the line between commerce and information? No more is it a question of parsing the biases of individual media outlets: It’s time to define a global media-education agenda so everyone can understand how today’s media works, and how best to [...]
If you can’t google it, does it exist? Search functions unlock the Internet’s potential, but how can we make it easier for everyone to find relevant information and act on it? Innovative thinking about metadata, permissions and trust could provide the necessary breakthroughs.
Session Chair: Jim Kennedy, VP Strategy, The [...]
Sponsored by the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, AARP, Kaiser Permanente and Microsoft
Leading edge thinkers discuss one of the most important and personally meaningful issues of the 21st century: How communications technology and the content delivered through it will be used to improve the health and quality of [...]
Women and girls are a powerful force online: They users, creators and participants, as well as marketing targets for advertisers. Yet women-led businesses and gender-balanced teams in new media are more an exception than a rule. What can some of today’s female media leaders tell us about building successful businesses, [...]
Founders and would-be entrepreneurs pitch their big ideas to a panel of business-launching experts. Even if you’re not pitching an idea, come watch the competition to start the next big thing.
Chair: Rick Ducey, EVP, BIA Financial Network
Suha Araj, Founder and VP of Strategy, Real Girls Media [...]How can media and technology be used to facilitate meaningful and measurable change in our society?
Working Group Chair: Brian Reich, author, Media Rules!
Ruth Behar, professor of anthropology, University of Michigan Luis Ramiro Beltr√°n, Bolivian journalist and scholar Andrew Karanja Githeko, Chief Research Officer & Head: Climate and Human Health Research Unit, [...]In a networked culture, innovation and creativity emerge everywhere. This workshop will illustrate how small networked teams of part-time employees and volunteers collaborate to produce Global Voices Online, a human-powered aggregator of ideas emerging from every corner of the planet.
Session leaders: Solana Larsen and Georgia Popplewell, Co-Managing Editors, [...]
Join a fascinating group discussion on how to find good journalism online, hosted by NewsTrust.net, our social news network. We will have a diverse group of journalists, educators, technologists and community leaders for this conversation. After a short presentation about NewsTrust, we will break into small work groups. First, groups [...]
Everything is networked: friendship, professional life, customers, knowledge, causes and commerce. These networks represent new opportunities to invent, innovate and disrupt. What do philanthropists, advocates, social entrepreneurs, tech startups, journalists, venture capitals and everyday users now have in common? Have networks changed the nature of business?
Session Chair: Merrill Brown, Chairman, [...]
As the economics of industrial journalism give way to the disruption and innovation of a digital, connected culture, new models of financing and practicing journalism are emerging. What lessons from social entrepreneurship are applicable here? If journalism makes the world better, should we think of it as a social cause [...]
Rather than trying to control content spiraling through the mediascape, enterprising businesses allow content to have a life of its own, as others repost, edit, parody, mashup or comment on it. While surrendering control may seem a counter-intuitive business strategy, content free-for-alls, with soft brand associations, can expand audiences, reach [...]
Indigenous communities around the world have long had their stories told for them by anthropologists, journalists and documentary-film makers. Today, more and more of these communities are online, telling their own stories.
Introduced by:
Sanjeev Chaterjee, Director, Knight Center for International Media
Session Chair: David Sasaki, Rising Voices
Cristina Quisbert, Producer [...]Traditional (legacy) news organizations have no choice but to continue to change in order to respond to the growth of aggregators and other WeMedia players. Learn how leaders in the field are tackling editorial, business and management challenges in the culture of empowered content creatives.
Session Chair: Carin Dessauer, Senior Fellow, [...]
Sponsored by Fleishman-Hillard
Social networking, un-conferences, wikis and other web tools can not only strength communities but also build momentum for brands and causes. Their success, however, depends on more than just digital connections. How can companies make the connection between online networks and real-world outcomes?
Session Chair: Susan Mernit, Senior [...]
Sponsored by Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive
New media is defined by online interactivity; no blog posting or article is complete with a comments section, for example. How do such virtual conversations influence, inform and reflect real-life public conversations? How can online community organizers keep participants on track and maintain order without stifling [...]
Sponsored by NewsGator
Advertisers and media companies are undergoing a dramatic transformation that impacts how they target and reach consumers and business users alike. Widgets and syndication services are enabling a new generation of capabilities that puts the consumer in the center and allows them to surround themselves with [...]
Winning others to your social cause has never been easier. Hear how three new-media organizations are leveraging the power of social networks to prevent cancer, support the arts and much more.
Session Chair: Suzanne Turner, CEO, Turner Strategies
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation invests $25 million in innovative approaches to journalism to strengthens local communities.
Session Chair: Eric Newton, VP, Journalism Programs, Knight Foundation
As commercial journalism evolves, the influence and impact of nonprofit media is expanding. Non-profits are developing new journalistic models; advocacy groups who once relied on journalists are now making the news themselves. How do these changes effect the delivery, dissemination, and our understanding of news? What are the potential risks [...]
The hierarchy between journalist and audience has broken down. While some fear the change, others see the enormous potential in bringing the work of professional and amateur journalists together. How are eyewitnesses, often using social networks, creating new story-telling models? What is the best way to leverage the experience of [...]
Meet and chat with author, blogger and media strategist Brian Reich at The National Press Club in Washington, DC.
When: Tuesday, April 1, 4 pm ET
Where: The National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, Washington, DC 20045, 13th Floor First Amendment Room [map]
What: Conversation Followed By [...]
Social media is all the rage. But why? Why is the connected society becoming so relentlessly social? Are we smitten with the technical cleverness of Facebook and MySpace? Do we revel in the empowerment of distribution and sharing offered by YouTube, Digg and Twitter? Are we simply fools for anything [...]
From Singapore: Conference Bay, an eBay-style auction marketplace for buying seats at conferences worldwide.
Nothing new here, right? We all know about online auctions. The only innovation is applying a well-tested online transaction model to a different niche - in this case a potentially high-value niche that may provide real [...]
As part of our on-going wrap-up of last month’s We Media Miami conference, I’m collecting here all the live-blog posts from the iFOCOS We Media blog, organized by panel.
The We Media fellows — that dynamic, hard-working group of folks who received some financial help to attend the conference, thanks to [...]
In the previous post, I aggregated as much online content about the conference as possible. Up top, you’ll see blog posts from conference participants. Down below is coverage specifically related to the We Media/Zogby poll.
I’ll continue to update the list, so please do comment here or email me (auseem@ifocos.org) [...]
An attempt to comprehensively round up blog posts by conference participants and attending journalists (with apologies that they are organized a bit randomly.)
Rachel Sterne: “Reuters Scientist demonstrates Mojo at We Media conference,” Ground Report blog, Feb. 27
“New Media Leaders Discuss How Campaigns Can Win,” Ground Report blog, Feb. [...]
More audio from sessions has been added. The new sessions added to the existing sessions are:
:: Civil Discourse
:: The Future of Information & Communication Technologies in Health
:: News World | Traditions and Transformation
:: Leadership World | Women, Media and Technology
:: Political World | Hype vs. Reality [...]
Last week’s We Media conference in Miami was a blur of interesting people I wish I had more time to talk to. Some people, of course, I didn’t get a chance to speak with at all. I was delighted, then, to see that Matt Dickman, director of Digital Marketing at [...]
More than 300 people from 13 countries gathered last week in Miami for our annual deep dive into the emergence of We Media as a defining force for the connected society. We’re already working on several big ideas we heard to take the conversation forward - through new research, the [...]
?Journalism should have a profound social impact,? said Alberto Ibarguen, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. This quote defines the root of the Knight Foundation?s partnership with the Ashoka: Innovator for the Public.
The Knight Foundation will invest $3 million in Ashoka to find social entrepreneurial journalists. [...]
Audio from the opening remarks of We Media 2008, the Print is Dead, Print Reincarnated and The Power to Change the World sessions are now available for streaming through this post or individual download through the player embedded here. Please check back for more updates.
(Photography by Tom Stepp)
We Media [...]How they do what they do? In 2004 Harvard fellows realized that several people in the world were blogging but people in US could not get the content, because of the language barrier, there were no content of some regions of the World, there were several issues not covered by [...]
Journalism should have a profound social impact, said Alberto Ibarguen, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. This quote defines the root of the Knight Foundations partnership with the Ashoka: Innovator for the Public.
The Knight Foundation will invest $3 million in Ashoka to find social entrepreneurial journalists. [...]
Here’s some key quotes that Craig Smith noted:
jen: connects moms together
randy: care2
“[care2 is all about] Helping people feel empowered”
chris: topix
“nobody reads the newspaper but everyone wants to be in it” “[social networks] will lead to a 10% jump in world productivity over the next few [...]
Question: What is the dialogue like in business today? Is it fear/excitement?
Lawrence:
The dialogue in business is a spectrum from anxious to terrified!
The logic from one to many may no longer apply, or may need to make room for this new model.
Organizational form (manufacturing economics) that tend to [...]
Networked Economics | Leveraging connections
Everything is networked: friendship, professional life, customers, knowledge, causes and commerce. These networks represent new opportunities to invent, innovate and disrupt. What do philanthropists, advocates, social entrepreneurs, tech startups, journalists, venture capitals and everyday users now have in common? Have networks changed the nature of [...]
The idea, for developers, is to produce the tools that allow us to share the content that is important to us and our world. This can even extend to the most emotional and historically important of arenas, including memorials of soldiers in the Vietnam War. Chris Willis of Footnote.com is [...]
The relationship between professional and amateur journalists is starting to emerge. Explore how non-professionals connected by social networks and tools influence new models of storytelling and workflow involving eyewitnesses, amateurs and professionals.
Session Chair: Louis Ferrara, Managing Editor Sports, Entertainment & Multimedia, The Associated Press
With:
Michael Tippett, Co-Founder, NowPublic
Kate Marymont, Executive Editor, [...]
“Any community that is large and diverse, will have sub-communities” says Elisa, but these sub-communities need rules that apply to everyone to lead to express disagreement without flaming. Blogher did not “silo” women’s interests. Members hop around from topics. Knitting and mommy blogs were here examples of different communities and [...]
What will be the result if you put together millenary cultures that preserved their memory and traditions in spite of repression and poverty, enthusiastic youth and volunteers discovering new media? You might be surprised of the amazing contents produced by Voces Bolivianas and Rising Voices (a project by Global [...]
Todor continues with anecdote about Fiat getting community built around adding features to the car. Car owners post about vacations in their cars, their cars as steppingstones to social engagement.
The moderator of this session is Susan Mernit and she is keeping the session moving so that all speakers get time [...]
Pitch It #3 A website that brings important information and sparks conversation around local schools.
Robert Park
Bringing laws to parents and providing a space to react to issues.
User case: A teacher was illegally posting grades publicly at the school. This issue was known by the parents and a problem in [...]
The past several decades have been marked by two trends in journalism, neither of them conducive to an informed public or the furtherance of democracy. On the one hand there is the growing consolidation of media ownership and a precipitous drop in national and global reporting. On the other there [...]
Sponsored by Washington Post - newsweek Interactive
Location: Storer Auditorium at 4:15 pm
Session Chair: Hal Straus, Interactivity and Communities Editor, Washingtonpost.com
Robin Miller, Editor, Slashdot/SourceForge
Slashdot has a multilayered moderation system for ranking comments. “If you ever get into a content rating system, do *not* call it ‘karma’.” Slashdot moderators are selected at [...]
An audience member noted that the online back channels are valuable. The big-screen has the Weme twitter posts, that is one kind of back-channel. Someone noted that back channels can become snarky and degenerate.
Someone else noted that the unconference needs direction that is subtle or at least different than we [...]
This is a good panel but it has been a long day. After this panel, the Mojito in the Grove session.
Dean Isaac Prilleltensky, Dean UM School of Education starts with an anecdote about women in Kerala, India, and a sense of well-being that began long ago, and resulted literacy as [...]
Activist world forum:
Innovative applications of media emerge in every sector of life. Its not just about blogs,Facebook and You Tube.
Session Chair:
Suzanne Turner, CEO of Turner Strategies was the session chairand she summarized the forum as a way of making changes using innovative tools that we have.
The forum was composed of [...]
Here we are, about to start “News World | Traditions and Transformation” — what fun!
Description: “Traditional (legacy) news organizations have no choice but to continue to change in order to respond to the growth of aggregators and other WeMedia players. Learn how leaders in the field are tackling editorial, business [...]
$25 million (Knight News Challenge) invested in innovative approaches to journalism the result: strengthened local communities. This is the goal of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.This is Innovation world. Eric Newton starts of the conversation. He begins with how the Knight Foundation got started, in newspapers [...]
Yes, The person we trust most is still our physician — but he/she becomes more elusive every day. No time to really speak to them. True patient/doctor communication is difficult to achieve in our fast-moving, technologically sophisticated world.
How can we use the web to improve patient/doctor communication?
Power of storytelling? [...]
A Dozen Edutainment Application Bundles
Definition
SEARCH WAS THE GREAT NEW FRONTIER. Sodden with copycats, it has become anhydrous. As Science Fiction writer Harlan Ellison has noted: We are entertaining ourselves out of existence.”
The Principia Mathematica by Russell and Whitehead would have been a thin book indeed, if it had as [...]
Speaker: Jeff Nolan, VP Business Development, NewsGator
Jeff Nolan from NewsGator opens with a discussion on what NewsGator does, which is to create the flow and routing of content to build communities and an audience. They started off with basic RSS feeds and are now involved with creating widgets. Now what [...]
Founders and would-be entrepreneurs pitch their big ideas to a panel of business-launching experts. Even if youre not pitching an idea, come watch the competition to start the next big thing.
Chair: Rick Ducey, EVP, BIA Financial Network
Can we trust media? Is the real substance, the real news? Which are the filters of information media has? Why is important to consider media literacy for the future as a tool? When and how to teach media literacy? In Kindergarden? Is it only for college students or is important [...]
Panel -
Session chair: Susan Mernit, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, iFOCOS, and blogger
Mary Hodder, Founder, Dabble
Judith Meskill, COO, Crowd Fusion
Carolyn Washburn, VP & Executive Editor, The Des Moines Register
Barbara Kahn, Dean, University of Miami School of Business Administration
Jan Schaffer, Executive Director, J-Lab
Everyone in the room is an “expert” and the forum will be very [...]
“As journalism declines, the influence and impact of nonprofit media will expand.”
Session Chair: John Bracken, Program Officer, MacArthur Foundation
With:
Jon Sawyer, Executive Director, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Ellen Miller, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Sunlight Foundation
Intro: John Bracken. The term nonprofit is similar to blogs in that it encompasses so much and [...]
After the announcement of the launching of Newmediawomen.org the speakers from their backgrounds and perspectives shared their views on how a woman can improve their chances on an environment where often is a whole table of men with dark suits with one woman. They highlighted the importance of women [...]
Who will do best for the average consumer?Andy: YOU. the consumer. We do not have a system of care in the US. Money flows in health care focuses on themselves and not YOU, the consumer. Saying this, people go into healthcare to help. The reason to give people power….IS TO [...]
Question: what will make me healthy? How will we manage the information? How many minutes do patients see doctors?Andy: The most intense users of the health care system is about 30% of the health care users. We then need to provide them with the tools that will help “people take [...]
UPDATED: 02.27.08 @ 3:39 p.m.
We created some keyword shortcuts to help you remember some useful info as your brains slowly jam full of tidbits and takeaways from WeMedia
Text these keywords to 99222 and get the following messages back:
afterparty Little Havana Tour-Shuttle from Sonesta @ 7 p.m. - Art studios, shopping, [...]
Are there any focus groups on sickness and wellness. We have so much info on how to stay heathyScott: the item that triggers search is usually ’sickness’. This is true for now. It is important for people to learn how to care for themselves….but, we have a compliance problem. [...]
How do we get critical information on health to people who need it?Kendall: We are going to be fast and interactive…parts of the eco system where solutions are coming from to solve the problems of healthcare and how to get it to people who need it. We will focus on [...]
We are living an interesting time in humanity. The planet earth is not unlimited. We actually are approaching a phrase where the population will decrease…..nothing to worry about, but this will change our lives, speaks Dr. Goldschmidt.Planet Earth will become full. Health will become increasingly important. Everyone will need to [...]
Bert Van Hoof, Director, Microsoft Health Solutions GroupDonald Hones, VP. Qualcomm,Health & Life SciencesEmilio Pardo, Chief Brand Officer, AARPDrant Harrison, VP, Integrated Consumer Experience, HumanaDr. Andrew Wiesenthal, The Permante Federation, Associate Executive Director
healthy world, We Media Miami, We Media Miami 2008, wemedia, WeMedia08
