Online Journalism

This just popped into my head during class.. Does anyone else see the resemblance between gmu online journalism professor Steve Klien and Sean Connery?

Storyboard for NAMI NoVA history project

Our project’s goal is to recover NAMI Northern Virginia history and present it interactively. We will conduct interviews with past board members, do research about the institution, and gather information about its history. We will be using different online platforms to organize and present the information.

Our project will be constructed around an interactive timeline. We’ll be using dipity to create it. We’re planning to use YouTube to post our videos, but they’re also will be linked to the timeline.  We will use batchgeo to create a Google map, and point the locations and programs offered by NAMI Northern Va. The map will be linked to the timeline. Slideshows, scanned documents, and other images will be also linked. We will use social media to disseminate the information we produced, and to reach out to NAMI NOVA established audience.

I will responsible for recording interviews, editing (with the help of Fernanda) and uploads. I am also researching NAMI NoVa’s history through its tax-statements as a non-profit.

I have one word to summarize this article:

Perfect.

It’s short. It’s catchy. It keeps you reading more.

Wait. Does that make me a lazy bastard, too? Probably.

But it’s true and everyone else is one.

We love short sentences, like the ones I used to start this entry, with bold-face words that attract our eyes.

• We love bulleted lists, too
• We love subheads

Why? It’s just easier!

We are informavores, meaning we hunt for interesting informations and facts. When a site does not seem to have what we want, we quickly move on to one that does.

Long texts are a no-no for writers, so it’s best to keep it simple.

When reading online, it’s important to:

• Read default fonts designed for screen reading, such as Verdana, Trebuchet and Georgia.
• Rest your eyes for 10 minutes every 30 minutes
• Do not keep screen too close to your face

Pleasure (Ludic) reading:

• When we like a text, we read more slowly to understand it
• When we’re engaged in a text, it’s similar to being in an effortless trance

Summary: In September of 2010, Google added a new instant search feature that shows results as soon as you type. Google declared that it will change the face of searching on the internet.

If search results were not quick enough, Google’s new instant search results software displays links the second you type something in the search bar. This is anticipated to save users on average of two and a half seconds on each search, as this infographic from Nine by Blue shows.

Image provided by Nine By Blue

Not only does the software display results quicker, but it also predicts your search. Much like your soul-mate, Google will be finishing your search phrases for you.

Bloggers and journalists more and more are progressing to siliar ideaologies

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) of Northern Virginia is a non-profit organization that seeks to provide educations and resources about mental illness. Founded in 1979, NAMI has helped individuals and families who are affected by mental illness, raised awareness of mental illness in the U.S. and advocated the government for the rights of people with mental illness.

Celebrating its three decades of dedication to the communities of mental illness patients, NAMI asked us to create a history project to retrieve and preserve the history of NAMI. As a group project, the group members and I will collaborate with former and current staff members of NAMI to explore how NAMI has gone through its time.

I will be creating a slideshow to enhance the viewers’ experience with browsing through the recordings of interviews, and also contribute my pictures to a variety of parts of this project. I will tag along with as many interviews as possible, and will also help researching literatures to better understand the history of NAMI.

technology and news- This slide demonstrates the benefits of technology in news.

• Newsgathering is much easier now.
• Consumers can be used as assets much easier. Meaning it is made easier to find out what the consumers want in their news.

This post from my tech blog called, Online Journalism, talks about the five prediction for journalism in the next 25 years.

We constantly talk about newspapers fading away in our class discussions, but we have a tendency to cast the future as an exaggerated present.

Prediction 1: People will still be predicting the death of newspapers

Prediction 2: Prices will head in opposite directions

Prediction 3: Journalism will be more like a musician’s career than a job-for-life

Prediction 4: There will be no single media industry

Prediction 5: Online journalism will become more specialised – and more predictable

These are some big predictions for journalism. One of the most intriguing to me is #1, newspapers fading away. I agree with the blog statement that newspapers will be around even 25 years from now. Its not a profitable business but there are so many other benefits beyond the revenue from advertising and cover price. People will still enjoying seeing their picture of the front of a newspaper, the second page or even the third page. I’d say it is more exciting than seeing your picture on a website. Everyone is online these days, big deal.

Jon Denunzio held a lecture where he spoke of the benefits of social media and effective ways to use soical media.

• Social media is a valuable source for consumer feedback.
• It allows websites to build rapport with consumers and open dialouge.
• It’s always good to search for new ideas, social media allows for makes it easier to get abundant feedback.