Twitter, a microblogging site, can be a great resource for journalists looking for additional ways to find story ideas and sources, as well as share content. It’s similiar to an instant messaging chat room in that you can interact in real time with millions of folks who share your interests. It’s a useful tool because it can show you what its millions of users are chatting about online.

How to sign up and get started:

Your home page, settings:

Welcome to your home page. The box under “What’s happening?” is where you’ll type and send your messages. Below that, you may see tweets, or messages, from another user. You can unsubscribe to those tweets later.

Along the right side of your home page you’ll see your username and a spot for your photo. Below your username you’ll see how many tweets you’ve sent, the number of users you’re following (subscribed to), the number of users that are following you, and how many lists you’ve been added to.

Going down the list, you’ll see a number of links. You’re currently at Home. Clicking @YourUsername will show you a list of all public tweets with your username in it. Direct messages will take you to your inbox and outbox for private messages. We’ll get to Favorites and ReTweets later.

You can fill out your account by clicking “Settings” at the top right of the Twitter page. Under Account, you can add a URL (can be your Web site or publication), one-line bio and your location (city). Click “Save.”

Under Notices you can turn off e-mail and newsletter notifications. You may want to turn these off if you plan to be active on Twitter.

Lastly, click Picture to upload an image.

Adding friends:

There are several ways to find folks you want to subscribe to – or follow – on Twitter.

-Click “Find People” at the top right of the Twitter page. You can search by a person’s Twitter username or name; you can also find them by their e-mail account.

-Use a directory of Twitter users. You can search for accounts by location and topic of interest. Some popular sites include Twellow, WeFollow and JustTweetIt.

-Follow a user’s list. Visit Mashable to learn more about Twitter lists.

Removing friends: On your home page, click “Following.” This will show you a list of every user you’ve subscribed to. Click the cog button, then click “Unfollow.”

Tweeting 101:

There are a number of ways for you to send messages on Twitter:

Tweet: A tweet is a message sent out to the Twitter community. These tweets can be read by your followers and those who visit your profile. These messages are limited to 140 characters, which can create some challenges, especially when sharing links. To help with this, try using a link shortener like bit.ly.

Sending a message to someone: You can send a message to other users by beginning the tweet with that person’s username.

Sending a private message: There are two ways to send a private, or direct, message. One option is to click “Direct Messages” in the right rail. You can chose who you want to message by using the pull-menu. The other option is to go to your home page and begin a message by typing a D followed by the username.

Retweet: A retweet is when someone copies, pastes, attributes and sends out another’s Tweet. Visit Mashable to find out more about retweets.

Favorite: You can Favorite, or save, tweets that you’d like to see again by hovering over the original tweet and clicking the star on the right side.

Other Twitter Tips:

Hashtags: Using hashtag terms are one way Twitter users organize Tweets. By using the same hashtag term, users can find Tweets about one subject easily in search. The more popular a hashtag terms become, the more likely it is to pop up in Twitter’s trending topics.

Lists: Lists allow users to organize their followers into certain groups. By adding friends to these lists, you can view a stream of just their Tweets.

Twitter etiquette:

-Twitter users may not automatically follow you. To build an audience, take the first step by following others with similar interests as you.

-Similarly, if folks do follow you, follow them back. (Of course if it’s a spam account, or something of that nature, there’s no need.)

-Twitter’s a two-way street. If you want people to respond to your Tweets, you have to respond to others’ Tweets.

-Be conscious of how often you Tweet. If you’re having a multiple-Tweet conversation with another user, you may want to direct message one another so you don’t clog up your friends Twitter streams.

Read about more Twitter etiquette recommendations. For more info on Twitter, visit Mashable’s Twitter Guide.

Amanda Maurer is a digital news editor at the Chicago Tribune, who specializes in social media. She blogs at acmaurer.com; you can also follow her on Twitter at @acmaurer.

Thinking about attending the FTC workshop on the future of journalism in the Internet age?

Here is the beginning of the FTC’s press release:

Consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet for news and information. Advertisers are moving ads to online sites and scaling back on ad buys as a result of the recession, and news organizations are struggling with large debts that were acquired during better times. As a result, some are questioning how journalism will evolve in the future.

The workshop will consider a wide range of issues, including: the economics of journalism in print and online; the wide variety of new business and non-profit models for journalism online; factors relevant to the new economic realities for news organizations, such as behavioral and other targeted online advertising, online news aggregators, and bloggers; and the ways in which the costs of journalism could be reduced without reducing quality. Read more…

***

Agenda

• Read the Public Comments
• Read SPJ’s Digital Media Committee comments
• Read SPJ’s Northern California Chapter comments

The first thing you’ll need to do is create a free Google Account. Click here to create a free Google account.

If you already have a Google Account created go to http://maps.google.com

Once you have logged into your account in the upper-left hand corner you’ll see the words ‘My Maps’.

Click on ‘Create new map’ to get started building a new interactive and embeddable Google map.

Give it a title and a description so you can easily identify it the next time you want to reference it. You’ll see why this is important in a moment.

Decide whether you want your map to be displayed publicly or only with people you choose to share the map’s URL.

Click ‘Save’.

Type into the search field the address of the location you want to add onto your map.

For example, I will type in ‘Chicago’ and click ‘Search Map’ and a red balloon appears on the city of Chicago along with a bubble with more information on Google maps.

Click ‘Save to My Maps’.

(click image to enlarge)

A box will prompt you to choose the title of the map you want to save this address in. This is where you realize how and what you titled your maps can help you tag addresses faster.

The bubble will expand to include a field for you to input a description of the address.

(click image to enlarge)

This gives you an opportunity to explain why this address is important to your user.

Advanced step:

You can choose to use either plain text, rich text or HTML to add information. There is also a mini WYSWIG (what you see is what you get) editor to assist you in adding photos, hyperlink text and much more.

You can also change the icon that points to the address. Instead of a red or blue balloon you can choose from one of many Google ‘default icons’.

Advanced step:

You can create and add your own icons to your Google maps by clicking ‘add an icon’.

Scroll down on the left-hand side on the Google maps where it says ‘Hide’ and un-check any addresses you might have erroneously typed to make them disappear from your map.

To embed your Google Map into a blog or Web site click on the word ‘Link’ in the upper right hand corner.

Copy the HTML code and paste it to embed into your Web site.

Advanced step:

You can customize how your map is displayed even further by clicking on ‘Customized and preview embedded map.’

Here are some fun examples of Google maps:

Report on Halted Development in Your Neighborhood

Grand Theft Auto IV Locations

myFOX Pets: Pet-Friendly Places (myFoxdfw.com has created a number of interactive Google maps you can check out)

Hilary Fosdal is the Interactive Content Manager for Barrington Broadcasting Group. You can read more of her work on Running for Food.

A funny thing happened when I was learning all about WordPress this month at their WordCamp in New York City: I stumbled upon a new Windows desktop application available for download that was created to make blogging easier.

As WordCamp attendees stampeded to an SEO workshop, I attended a Live Writer (beta) presentation by Dani Diaz, a Microsoft developer out of Philadelphia.

The first question Dani posed to the audience was: “How many of you time-out of your online session and lose your material when you are blogging?” My hand shot up.

With WYSIWYG authoring, Live Writer allows bloggers to create posts on their desktop with all the capabilities of blogging software. The settings allow users to transfer posts from Live Writer to major blogging software accounts, fully formatted to that software. That is, you can set Live Writer, for instance, to WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, etc., formatting and when you have completed your post, just send the whole thing over and it will be posted to your account. You can do this with countless blogging accounts by adjusting the Live Writer settings to tell the post where to go.

Here’s how the company explains it on their blog:

Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service.

Blogging has turned the web into a two-way communications medium. Our goal in creating Writer is to help make blogging more powerful, intuitive, and fun for everyone.

Among the features:

• integrate text and multi-media to the working Live Writer page
• integrate live links. Frequently-used links recur automatically as you type them.
• set publishing schedules. (This one was popular with the crowd)

Live Writer was also built for full compatibility with Windows Live application.

Jessica Durkin is a member of the SPJ Digital Media Commmittee, the Region 3 director for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and is a big advocate of entrepreneurial journalism. Jessica is based in Scranton, PA. She started http://inothernews.us to track online comunity news start-ups. She’s @jessdrkn.

The first time I saw a digital slideshow in the Washington Post, I knew I wanted to make that part of my multimedia tool kit.   I am not a professional photographer, but that hasn’t stopped me from figuring out which cameras and software to use to produce a digital slideshow.

I believe a slideshow is that extra nugget you need to go along with your written report.  I produce digital slideshows when my assignment is very visual.  I mean when there is a lot of action and reaction going on. 

Here’s one I produced  for pegasusnews.com.  It took me just under two hours to shoot the photos and conduct my interviews.  Then it took me forty minutes to put together the slideshow.

Stepping in the Right Direction from Rebecca Aguilar on Vimeo.

Digital slideshows help the reader ”experience” the story.   It makes them feel like they were right there when you were covering the assignment. In many ways they’re like the video stories I produced for my television reports.

Types of Digital Slideshows

A digital slideshow can be very simple or it can have many layers to it.  One story can be produced in different ways by just the elements you use in the slideshow.   A digital slideshow can include the following combinations:

1.  only photos

2.  photos and text

3.  photos and music

4.  photos and soundbites (interviews)

5.  photos and reporter voice-over

6.  photos, music and text

7.  photos, music, and reporter voice-over

8.  photos, music and soundbites

9.  photos, music, text, and reporter voice-over

10.  photos,music, text and soundbites

11.  photos, music, text, soundbites and reporter voice-over

12.  photos, music, text, soundbites, reporter voice-over and ambient sound (background sound like traffic etc)

13.  photos, text, soundbites, reporter voice-over and ambient sound

Here’s a digital slideshow I produced for pegasusnews.com with photos, soundbites, music and reporter voice-over.

Dallas police — “New Life Opportunities” from Alex Bentley on Vimeo.

The more digital slideshows you produce the better you’ll get at visualizing what you want and how to get the best results.  I get many of my ideas and inspirations from looking at other digital slideshows being produced by newspapers and online news sites.  The Washington Post and The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune are my favorites.

Minneapolis-St.Paul Star Tribune

http://www.startribune.com/slideshows/?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O%3ADW3ckUiD3aPc%3A_Yyc%3AaUQ7c4E7ME5U

The Washington Post 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/

Do you need an expensive camera or software to produce a quality slideshow?  Not really, but I’ll cover that and free software you can use in my next blog.

Until next time!

Rebecca Aguilar is a multiple Emmy Award winning journalist. She is currently working on a degree in Multimedia Development and she is freelance reporting in Dallas.

I recently appeared on the TV show Beat the Press to discuss the brave new world of reporting in a totally networked world (bah-dum-dum-ching!)

Here’s me talking about the various ways reporters use social networking sites like Facebook:

I’m curious to know your thoughts on this subject, dear readers. What do you think: has Facebook really changed anything?

Emily Sweeney is a staff reporter at The Boston Globe. You can follow her on Twitter (@emilysweeney) and find her on Facebook, among other places.

It takes two to tango. It also takes two to Wave.

As my blog-colleague here at Net Worked Amanda Maurer wrote recently, Google Wave is out and the invites are going around. I lucked into one and I’ve messed around a little bit with it.

Wave integrates elements of e-mail (er, Gmail), instant messaging, chat and interactive documents. It looks very, very cool.

I think Google Wave has the potential to revolutionize how large newsrooms large and small share information. It could create the ultimate collaboration system that opens the creative process to everyone involved in producing the daily news report — reporters, editors, designers, copy editors, photographers and Web producers.

The problem is, reporters, editors, designers, copy editors, photographers and Web people aren’t on Google Wave. At least not in my newsroom. Indeed, not in most newsrooms I know of. Not yet, at least.

I only know 3 people on Google Wave, and, while they’re fine folks, I don’t work with any of them. So I can’t tell you for certain whether Google Wave is really as cool a newsroom collaboration tool as I think it might be. I’ve never had to share a story or a presentation or a spreadsheet with any of my three contacts on Google Wave. Or haggle with them over a headline while the copy desk chief looms over my desk, smoke spewing from his ears, and says, “We have to have that story NOW!”

And it’s not just me. I sense there are a bunch of folks out there who got Google Wave invites but, because they don’t have any other contacts on Wave (or any other contacts they care to Wave at/with), they sit and look at their monitors and think, “What the heck do I do with this dang thing?”

I asked one of my digital sherpas, Dwight Silverman of the Houston Chronicle, when will other people I know get on Google Wave? He could not offer me much consolation, saying Google is slowly rolling out the invites. Darn.

If I can ever use Google Wave in a real, rubber-hits-the-road newsroom environment, I’ll put it through its paces and see if it’s really as cool and as barrier-breaking a collaboration tool as I think it could be. When I do that, I’ll offer a full report here. Until then, all you’ll get from me is the sound of one hand Waving.

Jennifer Peebles is deputy editor of Texas Watchdog in Houston, Texas. She’s @jpeebles on Twitter and jpintn@googlewave.com. Please Wave at her. She’s lonely.

The week in new media for this blogger started in Philadelphia on Saturday, Nov. 7,  and ended Thursday, Nov. 12 in Richmond, VA.

The days in between took me to Washington, D.C. and all the cities were quite the haul (24 road hours) from Scranton, PA, where I live. The trek was worth it, especially given the priceless networking and exposure to Journalism 2.0 projects and pioneers. And yes, for some of us who keep up with new media reporting and entrepreneurial journalism, there were some familiar names in the crowd.

Here is a quick recap:

SATURDAY: Philly

I liveblogged PhIJI: Philadelphia Initiative for Journalism Innovation, hosted by Temple University’s journalism progam faculty. The school chose panelists from local start-ups of both print and online publications, marketing executives, venture capitalists, and a faculty member from the business school.

Note: One of the organizer’s told me after the event that staff from traditional media were invited. None showed.

In the breakout session, “Multimedia websites,” reprsentatives from Philebrity.com, AroundMainLine.com, Berks Community Television (BCTV) and MiNDTV discussed their business models and stages of development. BCTV, a public station, recently received funding to develop a news site and are recruiting citizen journalists. AroundMainLine.com representatives talked about catering to an upscale bedroom community.

In “The Start-up Mindset” session, Gabriel Weinberg talked about his search engine duckduckgo.com that he said filters a lot of unwanted junk in search returns, while Neil Harner discussed marketing his new magazine Philly Beer Scene, a publication about craft beers that is catching on with bartenders, drinks reviewers and beverage distributors.

Venture capitalist/angel investor reps were from DreamItVentures and RSM McGladfrey/CFO Alliance. Marketers and branders included staff from Seek Up Group, Brown Partners, RadioOne, and book author Gloria Blakely.

Amy Webb, a new media consultancy firm Webbmedia Group, ended the day with her keynote address that introduced the crowd of mostly journalism students to Journalism 3.0 (and beyond!) web applications and “lifestreaming” trends. Her keynote material is here – there’s a ton of useful links. Also, some of this stuff is really advanced. What do you think about their applications for journalism?

MONDAY: DC

#nmwe

More than 50 people attended J-Lab’s 2009 New Media Women Entrepreneurs summit that assembled a day’s line-up of hyperlocal and community journalism pioneers. Some were operating with the help of donations and non-profit grants from J-Lab, others were commercial. All the sites, it’s editors and founders said, involved a lot of sweat equity.

Greg Linch, from Publish2, did a bang-up job collecting tweets, and here’s detailed coverage from a Knight Digital Media Center rep.

Panelist topics ranged from training citizen journos (difficult, and turnover is high) to staying organized using Google apps and  finding revenue by hosting regional conferences.

Some speaker highlights:

WestSeattleBlog.com co-founder Tracy Record talked about the “turning moment” for her community blog — when it morphed from a general neighborhood interest site to breaking news during a windstorm that shut down part of West Seattle. She was “self-drafted” by residents to find out what was going on. Record, a traditional news veteran, says she tries to post 12 stories a day.

At OaklandLocal.com, Susan Mernit said she is focusing on news and projects generated by area non-profits, groups which are usually underserved in traditional media. The site also reflects the large activist community in Oakland.

The Forum founder Maureen Mann started her site in an underserved media corner in New Hampshire. She said since the site began in 2005, legacy media outlets have begun paying more attention to the area. She also noticed more civic engagement: When she started, there were only two seats were contested for 22 positions in which there were only 14 candidates.

NewCastleNOW.org was begun in 2007 by two parents who were regular school board meeting attendees. They, Susie Pender and Christine Yeres, wanted more information about a school construction project. Now they cover four town hall or school board meetings a week.

MadisonCommons.org editor Cathy DeShano said she has had mixed results training citizen journalists. She said anyone who wants to contribute to the site must complete training, but many abandon the effort and lose their nerve to write when they see publishing standards. She said they get a lot of people in their 20s and 60s. Turnover is high.

Teresa Puente, a communications faculty at Columbia College in Chicago, is starting Latina-Voices.com to generate news and information about women in the Latino community.

A full list of names and site links to the 12 presenters is here.

THURSDAY: Richmond, VA

#onavpa

At the Virginia Press Association workshop, in collaboration with the Online News Association, newspaper people from some of Virginia’s major dailies were briefed on social media, online publication laws and the “micropersonal vs. microlocal” news movement, plus tips on mining online data, paid content, and social networking in political coverage.

The VPA has begun collecting blog coverage from the afternoon.

Ken Sands, a digital media consultant from DC., plugged the Twitter feed The Twitter Times and urged editors and reporters to find block-level data, do smart aggregation and tap neighborhood bloggers or contributors.

And Ryan Sholin,  Publish2′s director of news innovation, listed Five Ways to Put Social Media to Work in Your Newsroom. And he posted his slide presentation in PDF form on the Web.

ALSO THURSDAY: I couldn’t attend this, but I would have liked to: Jeff Jarvis’ HyperCamp on New Business Models for News.

Digital Media Committee member Jessica Durkin is the founder of http://inothernews.us, where she tracks community news start-ups. She is the Region 3 director for the National Association of Hispanic Jounalists, and just joined Journalism That Matters. She is @jessdrkn on Twitter.

The FTC has posted publicly on their Web site comments submitted by journos, academics and concerned citizens that are intended to guide the FTC’s upcoming workshop agenda entitled: From Town Crier to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age? Public Workshops and Opportunity for Public Comment.

The National Association of Broadcasters, Writers Guild of America, East and the Magazine Publishers of America have all submitted comments, along with many other individuals.

Did you submit a comment?

Are you planning on attending the Dec 1st and 2nd workshops?

Read all the comments now! http://www.ftc.gov/os/comments/newsmediaworkshop/index.shtm

Read the Society of Professional Journalists statement submitted by SPJ’s President Kevin Smith http://www.ftc.gov/os/comments/newsmediaworkshop/544505-00020.pdf

Click here to listen to the Thomas Loudon Interview

Listen to Jeff Achen’s interview with VJ Movement Founder Thomas Loudon. VJ Movement (www.vjmovement.com) is an exciting new independent news organization based in Holland. The brainchild of Thomas Loudon and Arend Jan van den Beld, VJ Movement is a completely new model for sourcing, selecting, aggregating, distributing and presenting professional video journalism.