Plagiarism is an ugly word.  Have you ever wondered if you are a victim of web content theft? 

A few months ago, I happen to get on a new internet news site where contributors get paid by the click on their story.  I also happen to discover that a story posted by a babysitter-turn-news contributor actually was written by a reporter friend of mine who works for a major newspaper.

The woman who copied and pasted parts of my friend’s story did not credit him.  Sure she only took parts of his story, but it was taken word for word.    Why the news site managers didn’t look into this; that’s another story.   Of course, I told my reporter friend, and he took care of the rest.

At a social networking conference, I learned about a site called Copyscape.  It’s a free plagiarism checker.  Simple to use and right now appears to be the only web tool out there targeting plagiarism.

How does it work? Just put the URL in the search box that you want to check for plagiarism and submit.

Copyscape does the search for free.  It even offers a banner that you can put on your own website that warns people that you use Copyscape for checking.

If you want more bells and whistles you have to pay for it, but that includes a service that is constantly looking for your work for plagiarism and alerts you.

Copyscape has had several favorable reviews by major publications and internet news sites.  http://www.copyscape.com/press.php

Rebecca Aguilar is a freelance multimedia reporter based in Dallas.  She has 29 years of experience and has numerous awards for her work, including several Emmy awards.  She’s also on the board of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.  Rebecca conducts reporting workshops around the country (Finding Sources and Stories, Networking, Live Shots, Getting the Best Interview, Writing to Video, and The Basics Of Multimedia.) She can be contacted at aguilar.thereporter@yahoo.com.

The 2011 Kiplinger Fellowship is all about social media. Fifteen lucky journos who land this gig will spend a week at Ohio State University (March 9-16) honing their social media skills and learning about the joys of SEO, strategic tweeting, and other wonders of the Interweb.

Fellows don’t have to pay anything – it’s all free, baby. The Kiplinger Foundation even pays your travel and lodging. Pretty sweet deal.

If you’re interested, then fill out this online application. The deadline to apply is November 30, 2010.

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

Last month, I was at the mall when I saw some security guards tackling a woman with a baby in one arm and a purse stuffed with clothing on her other arm.   At that moment, I wished I had my Sony Cybershot camera with me.  I never thought I’d see  a struggle in front of my eyes.

What I do know is two things; that video of the security guards and woman could have come in handy on a story on shoplifting, and I should have had a Flip camera in my purse.

Most of us will try to use the best video camera we can on a story, but in a pinch—a Flip camera is not a bad tool to have in your bag.  There are several versions of this small camera, including the Flip Ultra HD that costs about $200.

It’s easy to use, because you press a button and you’re recording.   It’s very convenient when you need to upload your video right away, because it has a flip out USB connector.  You can plug your Flip camera right into your laptop. Yes, it’s that easy. 

You can also buy an underwater case for your Flip camera.  This is great if you want to take shots in a pool.  I bet it would come in handy right now for those reporters covering the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.   

I found this video blog by a citizen journalist who uses a Flip camera for her reports.  It’s an excellent tutorial:

http://dev.freevlog.org/

Here are some basics on the Flip:

FLIP ULTRA

-Fits in your pocket

-Records about 2 hours of video on 4GB

-Uses double A batteries

-Any standard tripod can be used with Flip

-Also has microphone

FLIP ULTRA HD

-Fits in your pocket

-Captures about 2 hours of HD video on 8GB built-in memory

-It comes with rechargeable AA battery pack

-Also has a microphone

-Any standard tripod can fit the tripod mount

Search YouTube for more tutorials on the Flip camera.  Good Luck!

Rebecca Aguilar is a freelance multimedia reporter in Dallas.  She has 29 years of news experience and has been awarded numerous awards, including several Emmy awards.  She’s also on the board of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.  Rebecca conducts reporting workshops around the country (Finding Sources and Stories, Networking, Live Shots, Getting the Best Interview, Writing to Video, and The Basics Of Multimedia.) She can be contacted at aguilar.thereporter@yahoo.com.

I was tempted to call this blog post “10 Ways To Pimp Yourself Online,” but I worried that such a vague label might attract an audience with entrepreneurial aspirations of a different sort, perhaps of the (gasp!) street corner variety.

Since this blog is geared toward the journalistically-inclined, I suppose “building your brand” is a more appropriate description. In any case, here are 10 tips on how to increase your visibility so you can sell your skills, talents, and services….

1. Defend your turf

Sign up for social networking sites and claim your name before anyone else does. Try to be consistent with your usernames. I try to use my real name whenever possible – I set my Twitter handle as @emilysweeney. On Facebook, however, I wasn’t so lucky….another Emily Sweeney beat me to the punch, so I couldn’t use that as my Facebook URL. Don’t let that happen to you!

2. Master your domain

Buy a domain name that you can use as a “home base” – a place where you can post clips and showcase your work. I registered my name –  www.emilysweeney.com -  and I use that URL for my online portfolio.

3. Join a gang

Follow the advice of media maven Dan Schawbel, (author of the Personal Branding Blog)  and form “a Twitter mastermind group.”

“As you may suspect, certain groups of people on Twitter constantly promote and retweet each other. Some of them are in what are called “mastermind groups” — groups of individuals who are committed to helping each other and sharing knowledge amongst themselves. They are communities of supportive colleagues who seek to mutually help each other become more successful.”

Read more about that, and Dan’s other helpful tips, in his excellent column:

How To Build Your Personal Brand on Twitter

4. Leave your mark

While it might be tempting to spray paint your Twitter handle on a subway train, please don’t. There’s no need to vandalize. There are plenty of other ways to promote yourself. For starters, you can add your website URL and Twitter handle to your email signature, your blog comments,  and the taglines of articles you write. You should also put this 411 on your business cards, and all of your social networking profiles. Make bumper stickers emblazoned with your URL.

5. Get LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great resource to find people, and for people to find you. To make the most of LinkedIn, be sure to include all of your recent jobs and relevant experience in your profile.  Use descriptive keywords and post your Twitter account and website up there, too.  Select a personalized URL (See tip #1).  Once your profile is complete, start connecting with people you know and join some groups. Write recommendations for your colleagues, and participate in discussions.

6. Facebook

Facebook can be a great reporting tool – you can use it to find story ideas, background information and sources. It’s also another platform for you to present yourself and get more people to see your work. If you already have a personal Facebook account and profile, you might also consider creating a Facebook Fan Page.

7. Write, write, write

Raise your profile by contributing to media blogs and trade publications like Quill.

8. Tweet, tweet, tweet

Set up a Twitter account and snag your username (see tip #1). Use it to connect with colleagues and tweet links to your work and theirs.

9. Volunteer

Contact your local SPJ chapter and offer to help out. You could serve on a committee, lead a workshop,  mentor a young journalist, organize a panel discussion…It’s a win-win: you’ll be doing a good thing, and it helps raise your profile in the journalism world.

10.  Network

Last but not least, make sure you get out there and mingle your peers. Attend conferences and training seminars. Need ideas? A good place to start is JournalismTraining.org and our very own Digital Media Events calendar.

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

Creating and publishing interactive charts no longer requires expensive software.

Forget about building simple line graphs. Using Chartle.net you can create any number of visual charts to display your data online.

Here are a few examples of the types of charts you can make using Chartle.net:

Using Chartle.net does not require registration and is free.

Every chart you build can be published, shared and embedded on your website or blog.

Data for your chart can be entered manually or inputted using an excel spreadsheet via the ‘import’ feature.

You can also adjust the size of the chart you create to fit your site.

Before you publish your Chartle you’ll be asked to give it a

? Title

? Author

? Description

Click here to view an example of this interactive Chartle.net chart.

Need to make a modification to your chart? You can create a new chart using the data stored in a currently published chart.

Hilary Fosdal is the Interactive Content Manager for Barrington Broadcasting Group. She blogs at hilaryfosdal.com and tweets @hilaryfosdal.

UPDATE: (2/22/10) The company Page.ly offers a one-stop shop for self-hosting blog set-up. Leave the technical guesswork to them. Service is about $15 a month. They’ll get you blogging and will install all the SEO, plug-in, meta-tagging, social bookmarking gadgets for you.

UPDATE: (2/22/10) I came across this article, which has the steps for moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org.

You don’t have to be a coding guru or Silicon Valley veteran to start blogging with some bells and whistles.

I started from scratch last year and my goals were simply to have a blog or site where I could post text, embed links, upload multimedia, and while I was at it, add some of those social media and bookmarking buttons to easily share my pages.

I don’t know much about metatagging or SEO, have no idea what FTP sites have to do with anything, and CSS is beyond me.

This blog post is about my recent experience with WordPress.com and GoDaddy — no special treatment for those companies, they are not paying me or anything, it’s just what I use and know. Do a Google search for “domain registration” and “web hosting” for other companies to work with. Typepad and Moveable Type are other blogging companies similar to WordPress. The key is finding a one-stop shop place to connect your domain and site to a host.

First, I secured several domain names with GoDaddy and then I opened a WordPress.com account, where I keep my online news directory InOtherNews.us. Through WordPress.com, I easily connected that domain to the blog. The instructions are clear and it can be done in a few clicks. WordPress.com hosts the blog.

After several months of getting familiar with WordPress.com functioning, I started noticing limitations, namely, customization. I wanted to “trick-out” my blog with widgets and plug-ins and play around with themes. I also wanted to add social media buttons to posts and sidebars. WordPress.com blogs allow for those, but the selection is relatively small.

So I went over to WordPress.org — note: it’s DOT ORG — which is the natural next step to custom blogging. With WP dot org, you have to find a host elsewhere, and once you do, there are thousands of site design themes to choose from and a plug-in for just about any function you would want to add to your blog.

And this brings me back to GoDaddy, where my domains are registered. GoDaddy offers site hosting packages, I chose the $6.99 a month Deluxe plan. The hosting can be used for myriad blogging and Website frameworks such as Joomla and Drupal.

Once the hosting service transaction is complete, follow the quick GoDaddy process for downloading a WordPress blog and connecting a domain to it. I did this and was soon playing around with sophisticated themes and browsing hundreds of plug-ins for my new site (and I mean new — it’s a work in progress) NewsRedux.us.

The one-stop shopping at GoDaddy removed a lot of anxiety and frustration with getting my new self-hosted blog on the internet.

And if you get stuck, there’s always the 24/7 tech support phone number.

NetWorked committee member Jessica Durkin is a former old-school print reporter going new-school. Jessica is the founder and editor of InOtherNews.us, a directory of online, independent news sites around the country. She is based in Scranton, PA, and is a regional director for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

R U you ready for the collision of social media and public records? Is your state ready?

University of Texas journalism professor Wanda Garner Cash had an excellent column the other day in the Texas Tribune about how Texas’ open records laws haven’t kept up with the changing technology, such as the advent of Facebook and Twitter. She noted several things legislators should do to update the laws to ensure transparency in an increasingly tangled-up social media world.

But Texas can’t be the only state facing this issue.

So here’s my challenge to you for the week: Read Prof. Cash’s column — then sit down and think about how well your state’s public records laws deal with text messages, PIN messages, DM’s on Twitter and Facebook messages and write your own piece — whether it’s a column on your news organization’s site or your personal blog or wherever you can. Make this an issue in your newsroom, in your community, in your upcoming elections.

Let’s work to help the public stay one step ahead of government officials and their use of technology, not two steps behind.

Argentine journalist, Sandra Crucianelli knew something was missing when she attended the IRE conference in Miami in 2008. She couldn’t find a book on digital media tools for journalists in Spanish.

Crucianelli has now written the book in Spanish called “Herramientas Digitales Para Periodistas.”  It’s been published by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, and is available for free in a PDF that can be downloaded. Here’s the link: http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/hdpp.php

I looked over this online book and strongly feel it’s a great resource for reporters who work in Spanish language newspapers or online news sites.  It’s also handy for reporters who are learning Spanish in hopes of someday working in Mexico, Spain, and South or Central America.

The book includes chapters on accessing databases and official documents, using social networks, video conferencing, photo galleries and blogs.

Rebecca Aguilar is an Emmy Award winning freelance multimedia reporter in Dallas. She produces videos, digital slideshows along with her reports. She is currently working on an Associate’s Degree in Multimedia Development.  She can be reached at aguilar.thereporter@yahoo.com

Think you know all you need to know about Google? I thought I did — but last night I learned I only knew about a fraction of the cool things Google can do.

Jake Parillo, Google’s Midwest Global Communications and Public Affairs Manager, walked us through dozens — if not hundreds — of ways to use Google. Here are some of my notes:

- Google results are ranked by an algorithm, which take a number of factors into account.

- On a search results page, click “+ Show Options” to specify your search results.

- A few cool search tricks: don’t worry about capitalization, put a minus sign in front of terms you want to exclude from results (example: vacations -chicago will show you all vacation results that do not include Chicago), and search for content on a specific site by using site:chicagotribune.com (example: bears site:chicagotribune.com will show you all Bears stories on Chicago Tribune’s Web site). More search tips.

- Google’s search pages will continue to evolve. For example, when you preform certain queries, Facebook and Twitter updates are included in search results.

ADVANCED SEARCH

- Look into Advanced Search when you have time. Here’s where you’ll learn to include certain phrases, exclude others, etc. This is also where you’ll find a list of topic-specific search engines from Google including a U.S. Government search (google.com/unclesam), which will show you results from government sites only. Also check out Google Scholar.

- You can also find sports scores (search a team name during a game for scores), times around the world (“time (city)”), stock quotes (search a stock symbol to get up to get market results), and weather (“weather (city/ZIP)”). Google can also be used as a dictionary (“define (word)”), calculator (1+1), currency converter (“dollar to (currency)”), and a unit converter (“inch to (unit)”). You can also type in your flight (“(airline) (flight #)”) to find out if the flight is on time. Google contains so much data, that you can even search “population of China” and a graph and number will be the first thing to pop up. Click that to enlarge the graph to compare it to another country’s population – or the world’s.

- There are also language tools to translate a Web page. You can find these by using Google’s Chrome browser or downloading the Google toolbar.

HOT TRENDS

- Check out hot trends to find out what people are searching for right now.

- View Hot Topics to check out the larger-picture queries.

GOOGLE INSIGHTS FOR SEARCH

- It’s a tool that allows you to see the interest of a term on the Web over time. You can specify search, location, date range, seasonality and category. You’ll also see where that search term is the most popular. Type in several terms to compare the results against each other. (See: Thanksgiving)

- You have the option to turn on and off news headlines, which help give context to your graph.

ALERTS

- Keep tabs on your beat (or your reputation!) by turning on alerts — from news stories, blogs and more — to get immediate, daily or weekly updates on any search term you’re interested in. (I’d suggest your name and/or your social network handle)

NEWS

- Customize your Google News page by picking and deleting which sections you want — and don’t want to read about. You can specify the news to be just from your location (Detroit, etc.) or you could decide to have the headlines focus on your beat (ex.: health, or more specifically cancer).

- The Google News archive: Google’s constantly working on digitizing offline content; however some of the archived information does come at a price.

READER

- Set up your reader to have all of your favorite blog and site updates sent directly to you in one place.

MAPS

- Jake suggested using maps a number of ways including for before and after photos (referenced the Buffalo plane crash house, Haiti), creating an area map that readers can tag specific locations (ex.: potholes, wildfires, etc.)

- Jake also showed us how you could scroll through a time line of Google Maps satellite images (for example you could go through the building of Chicago’s Trump Tower) — but I forget how he said you can do this. If anyone remembers, please mention it in the comments! He said some of the maps and satellite images available go back to the 1940s.

- Google will soon offer bike directions in Chicago (in addition to walking, driving and public transit)

- If you have GPS on your mobile device you can type in coffee (or anything you’re looking for) and the map will show all of the coffee houses closest to you.

DOCS

- If you’re not a fan of Microsoft products, and don’t use them (like Google), try Google Docs for all of your word-processing, spreadsheet, presentation and form needs. Jake said the Docs are so secure that government agencies rely on them. Another plus is that since you save your documents online, they’re available to you everywhere you log in.

Some last cool tips, tricks:

- Try Google voice and video for free Internet chat

- Call 1-800-GOOG-411 for free search results over the phone

- You can text a query to Google, and it will send you answers

That’s about it! Jake promised to send us materials from the session, so we’ll try to post those too.

In the meantime, check out what folks had to say about the event on Twitter — and flip through photos from the evening.

Did I miss something? Have questions? Leave a comment!

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.

Interactive timelines are a great visual way to inform and engage users about your news topic.

Dipity timelines can do more than display simple text. Adding photos, links, and pulling in RSS feeds are just a few of the fun features you can play around with.

Timelines created in Dipity can be displayed using a standard linear graph or in ‘Flipbook’ mode which is similar to a multimedia carousel or ‘List’ which displays the content in a cataloged format.

Whether you are detailing a series of events that lead up to a major news event i.e., the spread of the swine flu, or providing a historical and chronological display of events i.e, the History of the New York City Marathon timelines are no longer confined to the boring textbooks of yesteryer.

HOW TO START CREATING YOUR OWN DIPITY INTERACTIVE TIMELINE

Go to Dipity and create a free user account.

Click ‘Add a Topic’

A window will appear asking you to choose a method to craft your timeline: Web search, RSS Feed, Blank.

To begin creating a standard timeline choose Blank.

The window will allow you to give the timeline a Title, Desciption, upload a timeline profile picture, add SEO tags, pick a theme, a timezone, and allow you to determine who you will allow to view your timeline.

I would suggest picking a free theme and allowing anyone to view your timeline.

To start creating events on your timeline click the blue button ‘Add an Event’.

A new window will appear that asks you to include a:

• Title
• Date
• Description
• Upload a picture or paste an image URL
• Add a link
• Include the location of the event (Dipity will generate a map for the location of the event)
• Add a video URL

Once you click ‘Save’ the event will be added to your timeline which you can view in the standard Timeline format, as a Flipbook, List or on the Map.

You can always go back and edit or delete any of the fields by clicking the event located on your timeline.

You can click ‘Add a Source’ to feed other online account data into your timeline i.e., Flickr, Tumblr, FriendFeed and Yelp, to name just a few.

Once you have completed adding in all your ‘events’ you can embed your Dipity timeline into your website, blog, or Facebook. Dipity will generate a customized embed code when you click ‘embed widget’.

Dipity is also social media savvy and allows other Dipity users to comment on your timeline and has Twitter, Facebook and a host of other social networking apps to help you spread the word about your cool new timeline.

Still have more questions? Check out the Dipity FAQ.

If you experiment with the RSS timeline feeds you’ll discover that Dipity automatically pulls in the images embedded into your posts or articles. Personally, I think this is a great feature – one less field for me to fill in!

Examples of Dipity interactive timelines:

• All things SPJ
• H1N1 Vaccine
• Apollo Timeline

Hilary Fosdal is the Interactive Content Manager for Barrington Broadcasting Group. She blogs at hilaryfosdal.com and tweets @hilaryfosdal.