No, I don’t mean those icky PDF-based “e-edition” replicas of print editions that are available online but aren’t interactive or updated. I mean, what’s the use when you can keep up with breaking stories AND get yesterday’s news on the full website?

No, I mean imagine a print edition that’s on paper … but it reacts to you like a touchscreen, and you can type on it, click on it, scroll it or swipe it.

The Japanese company Fujitsu has developed a way to make anything — a piece of paper, for instance — a touchscreen by using a special projector. So a newspaper can sell a onetime projection unit (once the costs drop down to realistic levels) to subscribers, and send a daily “newspaper” that can be projected on paper, or maybe on a wall (maybe the bathroom wall!).

Ah, technology. You gotta love it.

Journalists should all take note of the purchase, by Yahoo, of a 17-year-old Brit’s app for $30 million. The app, Summly surfs the Web for news content by keywords, then uses an algorithm to summarize those articles down to chunks that would be readable on small screens such as smartphones and tablets.

Nick D’Aloisio, who was born in 1996, two years after Yahoo was formed, launched the app in 2011 (he’s been creating iPhone apps since 2008) because he was frustrated having to read big articles on his small screen. Summly uses artificial intelligence and language processing programming to boil down text.

Once journalists get over their jealousy of a teenager getting the big bucks, they should think about what D’Aloisio has accomplished, and why.

For many news consumers, short, to-the-point communications is more useful on a day-to-day basis. They can sit back and enjoy the long enterprise stories on Sundays.
The foundational architecture of news writing – the “inverted pyramid” that puts the who, what, when, where and why at the top of an article is a model that’s still paramount. Busy readers can just scan the top of an article and “grok” what it’s about without diving deeper for details.

But in a world where people are increasingly connecting to the Web and getting their info on-the-go via smartphones and other mobile devices, we should all be more sensitive than ever to the elements of good writing and storytelling: the pacing of a narrative, the choice of words, the use of tools such as metaphors, similes and alliteration, and the rhythm of sentences that can be like music, ebbing and flowing melodically through the reader’s head, and the depth of a reporter’s knowledge and expertise in the subject all contribute to the quality of news. It’s how great writers separate themselves from mediocre ones.

And how journalism, which increasingly incorporates and relies on social media as another avenue for news content, separates itself from the clamor of social chatter.

In the end, not all news content needs to be in byte-sized chunks. There’s certainly a place for long narratives and 1,000, or 2,000 or even 6,000-word stories and more (last December’s fabulous New York Times “Snow Fall” multimedia package about a 2012 avalanche was 16,000 words, plus a lot of videos and interactive graphics).

Sure, the article’s going to be boiled down to “just the facts, ma’am” by Yahoo/Summly and probably a horde of other “summarizing engines” to come. But the original article, whether short or long, should be a pleasure to read in full.
That’s the value that journalism brings to society, which code and algorithms can’t.

Gil Asakawa is a journalist and blogger, and the Chair of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Digital Media Committee.

A study by the Local Search Association found that smartphones are increasingly the way people are accessing local information on the Web — along with other “connected devices” such as tablets, portable game consoles and e-readers. More than a third of US smartphone users also own a connected device other than their phone.

In December 2012, nearly one in two (48%) mobile users accessed local content, up from 42% in December 2011. The figure will continue to rise with the greater adoption of smartphones: 77% of smartphone users accessed local content, compared to just 14% of non-smartphone users.

It’s worth keeping these statistics in mind when developing a digital-first strategy for newsrooms.

I came across an interesting post on PaidContent.org, “What would the perfect news application designed for Google Glass look like?” that got me to thinking more seriously about Google’s new project currently in beta, a pair of glasses that would connect you to the Internet and use augmented reality to overlay information on top of what you see through the glasses.

Some of the suggestions in the PaidContent article aren’t new — urging media organizations to offer not just news, but useful information, has been a mantra for some companies ever since the dawn of the Internet age, although few companies have actually accomplished this balance.

But I thought these bullet points were worth pondering (You should go to the original piece to read them in their entirety; these are my comments about the bullet points)

• Short excerpts

Anyone who is familiar with digital-era communications understand that short and sweet — 165 characters for text messages, 140 for tweets, scan-able chunks on home pages that explain the essence of a story — is the standard. If someone’s interested in the full monty, they’ll click on through to read it.

• Real-time updates

Twitter and other social media have killed the sad irony of newspapers (“Old news delivered every morning!” “Today’s news tomorrow!”) once and for all. If you don’t cover the news as it happens, you’re not covering the news. Sure, you have to be accurate while you’re rushing out the alert, and that’s a pain in our hurry-hurry reality. But that’s why you’re a journalist.

• Designed for voice and touch

The future is mobile, and it’s already here. If you don’t have a version of your news product optimized for smartphones and tablets (meaning you need a touch-screen navigational scheme, and content produced specifically for those formats — no more “shovel=ware of content from one format to the other), you’re not meeting your audience’s needs today. For the future, products such as Google Glasses will be more and more voice-controlled. I already know plenty of people who rely on Siri on their iPhones more than I thought they would. Touch and voice — the future is already here. I know some journalists have finally come to accept websites as their digital-first avenue for media, but guess what — websites are already passe, and though they may stick around longer than dead-tree newspapers, they won’t be the default pipeline for news for much longer.

• Location aware

Anyone who uses their smartphone a lot has probably already come to rely on its GPS-enabled location-aware features. Click an app to find the Greek restaurant closest to your current location, or a supermarket, or a movie theater. Launch an weather app and it’ll automatically show the temperature and forecast for wherever you happen to be, whether it’s Boulder or Los Angeles. Marketers are busy dreaming up new and cooler ways to have special deals pop up on your phone as you approach a store or restaurant. Our devices will all be location-aware, to give us the news and information that’s most relevant to where we are.

• Prescriptive data

This one’s tricky for old-school journalists to get our heads around. This term is used for a feature that displays a whole bunch of information together, from your calendar agenda for the day and latest headlines to emails, social media updates and more. If you have a Windows 8 computer or device, you already see a version in the icon-filled launch screen. Google also has a feature called Google Now that is a harbinger of the prescriptive data possibilities to come.

I know this is a lot of crazy stuff to consider while we’re busy reporting the news, but I swear, it’ll be helpful to know what’s on the horizon, and it may even help you get and keep better jobs in the future.

After all, the future is now. It’s already here.

Back with more video grammar for journalists!

Today’s topic: “I shot video, now what?” We’re talking video editing on the computer.

Armed with all of the correctly framed, exposed and in-focus shots you’ve acquired using your BYOC – and using the single camera shooting technique we talked about previously – you should now have 20-30 video shots recorded on your device… Now what?

Time to feed the beast – the computer beast. Next stop: visual storytelling!

DANGER-DANGER

**BUT WAIT!** To quote my man, Meatloaf, “STOP RIGHT THERE!” Before I go any further a technical warning is in order about the type of computer needed to accomplish what editing video requires – especially in today’s world of file-based, high bandwidth, high definition video.

Before we sink our teeth into the process, find the right software and export the correct output files required for video, here’s a question to ask: do I have the right computer for the job?

What are the right computer specs for editing video? Depends on whom you ask: Videomaker, the Video Guys or DIY and the type of videos you want to produce. To produce glorified Powerpoints disguised as videos for Grandma you can probably get by with “minimum specs.” To import and edit full 1080i or 720p HD video files from a DSLR, a video camera, even an iPhone you need to feed the beast I tell ya!

There’s nothing more taxing on the processor, RAM and graphics card than manipulating very large files. Just how big are the video files you’ll be manipulating? A wise old photo editor told me once that to efficiently edit and manipulate a still image in Photoshop, the computer needs ten times the size of the image in RAM. According to Adobe, by default Photoshop uses 70% of your available RAM. And that’s just for still images!

SIZE MATTERS…IN VIDEO!

To give you an idea of the file sizes in video:

• One minute of standard definition digital video (DV) = 187.5 megabytes, one hour = 10.99 gigabytes.
• One minute of H.264 1080p HD (from a Canon 5D Mark II) = 355.89 megabytes, one hour = 20.85 gigabytes.

*Source: Digital Rebellion

DON’T SKIMP THE SPECS! (Don’t take my word for it…)

• For Avid’s Media Composer, specs are here for Mac/PC.
• Apple’s Final Cut Pro, here.
• Apple’s Final Cut X, here.
• Apple’s iMovie, here.
• Adobe’s Premiere,  here.
• Sony’s Vegas,  here.

While these six pieces of software are by no means the only video editing software out there, they all have one thing in common, they feed the beast. In our digital media department all of the 27″ iMac video editors sport i7 processors, 16GB of RAM, an HD capable graphics card with 2GB memory on the card and separate networked drives for media files. And yet, despite all that power, there’s many an evening I set up a machine to render a large video file and leave it to cook overnight!

Bottom line? Video editing is red meat for your computer, don’t send wimpy minimum specs to feed a hungry beast!

NEXT TIME: A look under the hood at video editing software!

Tim McCarty is a consultant, educator and Emmy award-winning Video Pro. A Professional Instructor and TV Advisor in the Journalism & Digital Media department at Ashland University, his department blogs at: http://ashlandmedia.blogspot.com/

Back with more video grammar for multimedia journalists.

To date we’ve talked shooting technique and how to shoot video like a pro. Indeed, it’s all about aesthetics and enhancing storytelling! Which segues into today’s installment.

I found Nicole Martinelli’s great post on IJNet International Journalists’ Network site recently. Graduate School of Journalism students at University of California Berkeley road tested mobile multimedia apps for journalists and she shared their picks.

Besides road testing apps and support gear students Casey Capachi, Evan Wagstaff, Matt Sarnecki and instructors Richard Koci Hernandez and Jeremy Rue also put out a MobileGuide for shooting video and recording audio on your iPhone. (Though good shooting and recording technique applies to any smartphone!)

It’s a great resource for journalists.

My favorite video support gadget by far is Joby’s line of small, lightweight, portable GorillaPod mini tripods. These tiny, flexible, highly versatile beauties allow you to mount a small video camera, DSLR or smartphone to just about anything. And I have! GorillaPods allow you to mount your camera on table tops, pipes, park benches, car side mirrors.

And they’re small enough when collapsed to fit in a purse, briefcase or small gig bag. Now, rock solid camera support is always with you in the field – even for your phone.

Here’s a secret from a video pro: steady camera = steady video = professional video. Period. But that doesn’t mean you have to lug around a big honk’n video tripod. Hey Joby, I shrunk the tripod!

No excuses. What are you waiting for? Just shoot.

NEXT TIME: I shot video, now what? A guide to video editing software and techniques.

Tim McCarty is a consultant, educator and Emmy award-winning Video Pro. A Professional Instructor and TV Advisor in the Journalism & Digital Media department at Ashland University, his department blogs at: http://ashlandmedia.blogspot.com/

There’s more to Twitter than just crafting a good Tweet, using the right hashtag and including links.

Jodie Mozdzer Gil is an assistant professor of multimedia journalism at Southern Connecticut State University. She previously reported for the Valley Independent Sentinel, the Hartford Courant and the Waterbury Republican American. You can follow her on Twitter @mozactly.

These days, when we need ready answers to pressing questions, faster certainly is better. And in our mobile-media world, faster is also essential.

That’s why the question-and-answer website Quora may have added horsepower to the information race with the introduction this week of Online Now, a feature that puts likely experts and admitted novices together with just a click.

Online Now appears as a gray note by the names of frequent knowledge contributors who are online at that moment, allowing the inquisitive to post pressing questions by clicking a blue “Free to Ask” button that moves those questions higher in priority than general queries.

Details of the exchange appear only in Quora’s Ask to Answer section, which constitutes a list of contributors the site believes is best suited to answer particular questions. The Online Now feature can be tweaked to indicate who is the answerer or questioner, or can be turned off, in the user settings.

“This is especially fun if you are in the mood to answer certain topics,” explained Joel Lewenstein, a designer at Quora, in a blog post on the subject. “Maybe you saw a movie or a sporting event, fell in love with a new restaurant, or just finished a book. When you feel like answering questions about a specific topic that you know, Online Now will send people your way.”

Demand for faster responses on Quora has grown since the site released mobile app versions starting last year with the iPhone, said Marc Bodnick, a member of Quora’s business team, in an interview with PCMag.com. He says mobile use makes up about 25 percent of all Quora traffic.

David Sheets is a freelance editor, Region 7 director, and past-president of SPJ’s St. Louis Pro chapter. Reach him by e-mail at dksheets@gmail.com, on Twitter at @DKSheets, on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Courtesy FDNY

This article in the Valley Independent Sentinel is an example of how multimedia elements (and citizen journalism) helped take a simple local story and add context and emotion.

The Valley Independent Sentinel is an online-only hyper local news site in Connecticut. (Full disclosure: I helped launch the site in 2009.)

The news site has done a great job keeping ahead of the social media and multimedia trends in journalism — and forcing competitors in the area to get on board.

This week, editor Eugene Driscoll was faced with a fairly common story for local newspapers: A group of students collected donations for people affected by Hurricane Sandy in Rockaway, Queens.

It’s easy for local reporters to decide these stories are monotonous, and react by banging out some standard, boring 8-inch story about the donation drive.

But Eugene Driscoll took another approach, using Storify and citizen journalists to help add context to the story.

Driscoll created a Storify that detailed the damage in Rockaway, and the school’s efforts to get support via social media. One of the tweets is posted below.

I grew up in Rockaway, Queens and my parents are still there, they lost everything. Field trip to help, pay it forward? Anyone interested?

— Derby High School (@DerbyRedRaider) November 3, 2012

And he embedded a video produced by a friend of a Rockaway resident that shows exactly what was going on there after the storm. The creator of the video is not a journalist, but what he did here was a form of journalism.

He combined these aspects with the standard 8-inch story about the donation drive. The result was a much more compelling piece.

How have you used multimedia, social media and citizen contributions to bolster commonplace reporting? Share links to some examples in the comments section.

Jodie Mozdzer Gil is an assistant professor of multimedia journalism at Southern Connecticut State University. She previously reported for the Valley Independent Sentinel, the Hartford Courant and the Waterbury Republican American. You can follow her on Twitter @mozactly.

Note: This post appeared in the September/October issue of Quill. 

Pinterest might have a reputation as a social network for sharing recipes and fashion tips, but news organizations across the country are embracing Pinterest in innovating ways.

In case you’re not acquainted, Pinterest is an image-based social network where users post links and photos onto different topic boards. The posts show up as a stream of images, like photos pinned to a bulletin board.

Each user can create and pin to dozens of different topic boards, to share different types of content. Like with Twitter, you can follow other people – or individual boards – on Pinterest, to see what items they are pinning.

The simplicity and visual appeal give posters a different approach to attract interest for their content.

Several newspapers are using Pinterest for fashion, food and other features items. The New York Times, for example, started its Pinterest page in June with boards on shoes, food and fashion.

But the visual power of the social network can extend well beyond fluff stories, as the following examples show.

Front Pages: Several news organizations have boards that highlight their front page each day. The pins link back to the newspapers’ websites.

Quotes: Lack a photo? You can do like the Wall Street Journal and the Mercury News: grab wacky pull quotes from a story to draw a reader in. Pins link directly to the article.

User-Submitted Content News organizations have created boards for everything from prom pictures to engagement announcements, to share their readers’ content with a broader audience.

Staff Bios: Many news organizations are posting photos of staff members, with contact info and links to their content on the news site.

Illustrations: The Wall Street Journal has a board of its “hedcuts,” those dot-ink portraits that have become a signature illustration in each day’s newspaper. The illustrations are impressive on their own. But a sea of the illustrations on a Pinterest board is a fascinating back door to interesting stories you might have missed in print, or online.

Different twist on political candidates: The Washington Post has boards for biographical information about presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, for a different approach to profiles about the candidates, complete with childhood and wedding photos.

Outside content: The Guardian of London has a board called “On Our Radar,” in which the news organization links to news stories it finds from other sources.

Profiles: The Des Moines Register has a board called “Interesting People” that links to news stories, blog posts and other features about people in Des Moines.

Special projects: Digital First Media newspapers have a Pinterest board for their special reporting project on homecoming veterans.

Community Guides: From The Morning Journal’s guide to Ohio golf courses, to the Denver Post’s Favorite Colorado Places board, newspapers are using the visual ability of Pinterest to offer a public service to readers.

The key, as with any social network, is engaging your audience. Invite readers to contribute their own content to boards, as the Atlanta Journal Constitution does.

And make sure you aren’t spamming your readers with feeds of only your content. Keep the pins interesting – and don’t be afraid to share content that isn’t from your news site.

Want to learn more, or find other newspapers who are using Pinterest? Follow Joanne Phillips on Pinterest or Twitter. She’s tracking new newspapers that join in and has a great board with more than 150 different news Pinterest sites.

Jodie Mozdzer Gil is an assistant professor of multimedia journalism at Southern Connecticut State University. She previously reported for the Valley Independent Sentinel, the Hartford Courant and the Waterbury Republican American. You can follow her on Twitter @mozactly.