Kyle MacRae on citizen journalismtag:frontlineclub.com,2008-10-08:/blogs/kyle//562008-12-11T15:20:57ZMovable Type 4.23-en"Sweet Jesus! Apple has just revolutionized citizen journalism with their AP app for iPhone"tag:frontlineclub.com,2008:/blogs/kyle//56.29002008-06-09T20:13:55Z2008-12-11T15:20:57ZWell, that's according to @tacomasha on Twitter. @tonysteward is more restrained - Okay, the AP iPhone app is legit, it will take citizen journalism to a whole new level. Exciting! As is @miguelmanalo - Dude AP on-the-go citizen journalism? Kickass....Kyle MacRae
@tacomasha on Twitter.
@tonysteward is more restrained -
Okay, the AP iPhone app is legit, it will take citizen journalism to a whole new level. Exciting!
And others.
So, what we have, or seem to have, is an application for the iPhone from Associated Press that as well as feeding news to the mobile also allows users to upload their own news. It's not clear right now in the white heat of bleeding-edge technology that is the iPhonzzzz - sorry, it's not clear right now whether we're looking at text only or multimedia. If the latter, it sounds suspiciously like ShoZu to me, which has long enabled mobile users to submit pix and videos to a number of user-specified destinations - Flickr for sharing, Scoopt for selling, CNN for hoaxing etc - from pretty much any handset, instantly.
Quite what AP will do with a flood of 'newsworthy' tips or content from budding CitJs remains to be seen. Filter for the very occasional nugget, perhaps. But I'll make one prediction with 100% certainty - while it's great to have a direct hotline to the world's media on your mobile, most users will quickly tire of waiting for a plane to fall out of the sky or a celebrity out of a nightclub.
Unless, that is, AP recognises that this is a two-way street and has plans to engage its potentially vast new army of stringers with (photo)journalism-related activities - something that Getty Images should but didn't do with Scoopt.]]>
The gorilla wades intag:frontlineclub.com,2008:/blogs/kyle//56.28992008-05-20T19:27:58Z2008-12-11T15:20:57ZYouTube is launching Citizen News (from RWW) The CitizenNews channel is where we'll be highlighting some of the best news content on YouTube. If you see examples of great journalism and reporting being done by your fellow YouTubers, let me...Kyle MacRae
Citizen News (from RWW)
The CitizenNews channel is where we'll be highlighting some of the best news content on YouTube. If you see examples of great journalism and reporting being done by your fellow YouTubers, let me know!
So that's that, then. Well, maybe. Until now, anybody with a newsworthy video could send it to the BBC, CNN, Reuters and a host of other destinations. But many preferred YouTube because that's where the most eyeballs tend to be. And of course videos get picked up and embedded all over the web, which spreads the news even further - something that's generall not possible with mainstream media outlets, because content lock-in is SACRED.
With YouTube offering a dedicated home for amateur news video, it could be game over for much of the competition - certainly unfocussed startups like CitizeNews.
However... success or otherwise will depend on the execution. Will YouTube invest sufficient resources to make sense of a mass flow of video content, where 'sense' includes value for viewers as well as contributors? In other words, will YouTube filter (with or without community power) and build an alternative, or parallel, news portal? It's going to be interesting to watch.]]>
The need for a nichetag:frontlineclub.com,2008:/blogs/kyle//56.28982008-05-19T17:19:00Z2008-12-11T15:20:57ZThere's something genuinely touching about Michael Rosemblum's testimony to Ken Krushel. Together they devised CitizeNews, and launched it last summer: Then we went out to try and raise money for it. It was not easy. We were late. After Youtube...Kyle MacRae
Michael Rosemblum's testimony to Ken Krushel. Together they devised CitizeNews, and launched it last summer:
Then we went out to try and raise money for it. It was not easy. We were late. After Youtube and just as newspapers were starting to migrate into video. We talked to everyone in Silicon Valley. (If you’d only been here six months ago, we would have funded it).
A familiar story. So, left with a good idea and no funding, what to do?
...Ken never gave up on the idea of a new kind of video online journalism. He begged, borrowed, cajoled for content. He worked selflessly for free. He continues to do so to this day. It’s more than a labor of love. It’s driven by a deep belief on his part that television journalism can be much much better than it is; that there is enormous potential here that we are just beginning to tap into. It’s more than a business decision. It comes from someplace deep inside and an intense dedication to making the world a better, more interesting and better informed place.
But here's the thing, or at least one of them. For Citizen News to work, it has to become both a natural destination for quality video contributions and a valuable destination for an audience looking for alternative news (from what I've seen, little or none of the content here would be of interest to a broadcaster so commercial syndication seems unlikely).
However, like most citizen journalism sites, its remit is far too wide. What connects Olympic protests in San Francisco with a driving on ice course in Colorado, or a circumcision clinic in the Netherlands with Romanian troops in Afghanistan? Nothing, other than all being published videos on CitizeNews this April.
Without a strong identity - 'come here for Content X, because that's where we excel' - it's hard to see why anybody would visit twice. It's equally hard to see why anybody would contribute when they could reach a far wider audience elsewhere.
To me, it feels like Citizen News needs a niche. That would give:
~ contributors of Content X a place to share it
~ viewers interested in Content X a place to find it
~ Citizen News the differentiator it needs to attract a loyal following.
As is stands...
Our mission is to aggregate the work of talented video journalists of great diversity and distinction whose work is characterized by a powerful individual vision.
Sounds good - but it's essentially meaningless. As is this:
CitizeNews is building a community of credentialed video journalists whose work is memorable for the quality of storytelling. We realize there are dozens and dozens of video web sites competing for your work. We are striving to differentiate ourselves from this mass of miscellaneous video by offering unique craftsmanship, the result of your sincere and sustained journalism efforts.
To a potential contributor this just begs the question: ok, so what EXACTLY is it that you want from me?
My guess is that Citizen News waited to see what it would get before defining the parameters of what it wanted. I'd argue that this is the wrong way around. The site needs to define its content requirement first - the narrower, the better, imho - and then issue a crystal-clear call to action.
Who knows, it could just end up aggregating and delivering the best possible Content X available anywhere.]]>
Guest post: John Kellytag:frontlineclub.com,2008:/blogs/kyle//56.28972008-05-08T19:58:33Z2008-12-11T15:20:57ZJohn Kelly is an American journalist currently living in Oxford - and on a mission: I'm studying citizen journalism, a buzzword which basically applies to anyone who isn't like me doing what it is that I do. You can read...Kyle MacRae
I'm studying citizen journalism, a buzzword which basically applies to anyone who isn't like me doing what it is that I do.
You can read his blog here [http://voxford.blogspot.com]. Below, he kindly reflects on his progress for the Frontline Club:
I have an odd personality trait: I am both enchanted by and repulsed by whomever I happen to be talking with at any particular moment. I suspect this is not uncommon among journalists. It allows us to be simultaneously receptive AND skeptical, to be open to a source or a story while also protecting us from getting bitten in the ass. Nowhere have I experienced these feelings more strongly than while pondering so-called citizen journalism.
When I talk to a mainstream journalist who rails that citizen journalism is killing our business and who proposes a Canute-like opposition to user-generated content, I feel as if the mainstream press should go the way of the whale-oil lamp. But then when I hear a techno-evangelising blogger proclaim that the press is an aloof, venal dinosaur deserving of destruction and that the wisdom of the crowds will solve the world's problems, I reach for my claymore. Perhaps I need medication.
I am not a futurist able to confidently make bold predictions about what's going to happen, or even should happen, next. I'm just a hack who would like to have a job for the next 20 years, who is proud of the work that journalists do and the service we provide, but who has always suspected that we've often thought of our readers/viewers/listeners as superfluous, if not downright irritating. We can no longer afford that attitude.
Here are a few things--many of them obvious--that I've decided after pondering citizen journalism and new media:
New media--digital cameras, easy-to-use camcorders, blogging software, broadband connections--has made it possible for amateurs to put their journalism or pseudo-journalism in front of millions of people. That genie is not going back in the bottle.
We may rail against dishonest, sensationalistic or just plain bad citizen journalists, but proper journalists have screwed up plenty in the last few years. Some of us made stuff up (step forward, Jayson Blair). Most of us blew the Iraq story.
The vast majority of citizens don't want to be journalists. Citizen journalism isn't killing journalism. Bloggers need the mainstream media more than anyone.
We should see readers as more than merely customers. What citizens want, I think, is a journalism that is less opaque, that's delivered in a variety of ways, and that allows them some level of involvement and interactivity.
What precisely that level of involvement is will be different for each reader, and for each news outfit. It makes sense for the BBC to have a huge UGC hub--two dozen people when I visited. They can afford it (for now anyway). It sends the message that a large, seemingly faceless news organization is interested in its users' views. It occasionally turns up useful material--a memorable video, a compelling photo. And it allows the BBC to compile the world's greatest list of sources. Every incoming "Have Your Say" e-mail is categorised and filed so that a BBC journalist looking for, say, a West African single mother affected by food shortages can find one.
To me, that underscores how we should be approaching this: What makes sense journalistically? If we have a story that can be "crowdsourced"--a complex, confusing topic that can be broken down and understood with the help of dozens of voluntary eyeballs--why wouldn't we explore that? If a hyperlocal web site covers a neighbourhood much better than our overworked reporter can, why wouldn't we send readers to it, or welcome it under our wing? If we think readers would appreciate posting comments after our stories, why wouldn't we swallow our dismay at the occasionally (okay, frequently) nasty tone?
I have a hunch that we'll look back in a few years and chuckle at the "UGC wars." We'll wonder how any of us could have believed that there should have been an impenetrable wall between journalists and readers. We'll label our content clearly so readers can understand who produced what--and how. We will specify ways readers can help us do our job--while remaining in the driver's seat. We'll accept that reading blogs and the earnest if unpolished websites of amateurs are just part of a journalist's regular reporting.
I think we should do these things so that our product is more appealing and more useful. If that's good for democracy (one of the claims that citizen journalism's boosters make), great. But I'm less interested in empowering citizens than in informing them. And my desire to inform them is only tangentially related to my hope that they will be civically active. I just want them to buy my paper or frequent its online advertisers or do whatever in future will guarantee some flow of funds into my checking account.
I don't think any of this will be easy. Business is bad for reasons entirely unrelated to UGC. But journalists have to approach new media and citizen journalism as we would any story: with an open mind and a cocked eyebrow. We shouldn't be afraid of rolling up our sleeves and seeing what works.
Thanks John - a most balanced and sensible helicopter view.]]>
Cash for (second-hand) content?tag:frontlineclub.com,2008:/blogs/kyle//56.28962008-04-28T19:28:48Z2008-12-11T15:20:57ZA week ago, TechCrunch reviewed DigitalJournal's citizen journalism relaunch. The thrust of the piece was the revenue share for contributors: Digital Journal offers a Citizen Journalism site in a similar fashion to Instablogs, OhMyNews, Newsvine, Norg Media and others. Members...Kyle MacRae
TechCrunch reviewed DigitalJournal's citizen journalism relaunch. The thrust of the piece was the revenue share for contributors:
Digital Journal offers a Citizen Journalism site in a similar fashion to Instablogs, OhMyNews, Newsvine, Norg Media and others. Members contribute news items for the site, and in theory the wisdom of the crowd combines to create a Google friendly news resource. Where Digital Journal perhaps is a little different in this space is that it revenue shares with contributors, and has paid out $38,000 to CitJ’s already...
In the comments, DigitalJournal's editor-in-chief Chris Hogg emphasises the difference between his site and, say, Newsvine:
Newsvine is of course the big kahoona but we also try to differentiate ourselves because we are a source of content rather than solely a link site. Newsvine has its columnists but it’s mainly powered by an AP feed and seeded links. I’m not knocking the site (there is a lot of value in these features) but we do look to try and stand out from a quality standpoint and provide actual information rather than simple click throughs to other stories.
That's what caught my eye. One of the unanswered questions in the whole citizen journalism space is whether there's enough fresh news to make a website like this work. God knows, mainstream newsrooms struggle to fill their pages and broadcasts so can a community-powered play really deliver something special?
Well, if DigitalJournal really wants to be a "source of content rather than solely a link site", it needs to do more than re-report and rewrite the news.
Right now, the front page lead story is about Miley Cyrus apologising for some photos. According to DigitalJournal:
A source who is close to the singer said that Cyrus was clothed in the photos but she was in positions that made her appear to be topless. The photos that surfaced on the Internet show Cyrus draped over the lap of her then-boyfriend and in another photo she is seen showing part of her green bra. Bill O'Reilly, conservative TV commentator, voiced his criticism over the photos and the Jonas Brothers had some words of support... Vanity Fair did not respond to PEOPLE's requests for comment on Sunday but a spokes woman for Vanity Fair said that Miley's parents were there all day and the photos were taken digitally and they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley.
Doesn't that sound awfully similar to the original story on People?
A source close to the singer tells PEOPLE that Cyrus is clothed but shown by renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz in such a way that that the teen appears to be topless. In the photos that circulated on the Internet, Cyrus, her midriff exposed, is shown draped over the lap of her then-boyfriend, her producer's son. In another image, a hint of a green bra is evident. (Those photos alone prompted criticism from conservative TV commentator Bill O'Reilly, as well as words of support from the Jonas Brothers and a fellow Disney star.)... PEOPLE's requests to Vanity Fair for comment were not answered on Sunday. In a statement to The New York Times, Beth Kseniak, a spokeswoman for both Vanity Fair and Leibovitz, said: "Miley's parents and/or minders were on the set all day. Since the photo was taken digitally, they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley."
Elsewhere on the front page, the story about a new sarcophagus for Chernobyl is a rewrite of a Yahoo story (supplied by - guess who - yep, AP); and the piece about Forbes.com releasing a list of the Top 10 criminal master players is just a churn of Forbes' own story.
And so on, and so on. DigitalJournal may not be "solely a link site" but it's largely a lift-tweak-recycle-and-hope-for-some-comments site. Is there a difference? Does it add value if a professionally produced story is rewritten by an amatuer?
Nope.
This, from the site's news tips section, says it all:
How Do I Find a Great News Story?
Journalism is born out of curiosity. Good reporters are always asking questions, always looking to find stories that the mainstream media misses. The best way to find a great story is by reading your favourite reputable newspapers or websites.
Indeed it is. Which is why DigitalJournal's sleight-of-hand content-recycling masquerading as "The Power of Citizen Journalism" is misguided. But unfortunately, the alternative - producing fresh, original content that attracts an audience - is impossible (in my view), no matter how big or wise your 'crowd'. There just ain't enough unreported news that anybody cares about to sustain an alternative, parallel, user-generated media that anybody cares about.
I used to believe that citizen journalism could reshape and broaden the news agenda. I'm pretty sure I was wrong. What it can do is augment mainstream coverage (to the good) and occasionally - very occasionally - generate a scoop or a bit of a bluster.
Is that it?]]>
iMobile.com already gone? Nevermind...tag:frontlineclub.com,2008:/blogs/kyle//56.28952008-04-21T17:28:25Z2008-12-11T15:20:56ZAnother mainstream entrant into the citizen journalism space, this time from CBS and sporting one of the worst URLs yet - http://www.cbseyemobile.com. That's 'eye' as in 'i' as in 'iMobile', of course. Snappy strapline, too: At first glance, it's much...Kyle MacRae
CBS and sporting one of the worst URLs yet - http://www.cbseyemobile.com. That's 'eye' as in 'i' as in 'iMobile', of course. Snappy strapline, too:
At first glance, it's much of a muchness with CNN's iReport and similar sites. As you would expect, there's an uncompromising rights grab in force, so contributors can kiss their copyright - and any hope of earnings - goodbye.
When you upload Your Upload Information via the Web Sites, you irrevocably grant to Company [...] a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license containing, without limitation, all right, title and interest in Your Upload Information [...] You further agree that Company [...] will have the unfettered right throughout the universe, in perpetuity, without any credit or compensation to you, to use, reuse, modify, alter, display, archive, publish, sub-license, perform, reproduce, disclose, transmit, broadcast, post, sell, translate, create derivative works of, distribute and use for advertising, marketing, publicity and promotional purposes [...] You hereby waive any moral rights you may have in and to any of Your Upload Information
Now the fact is that people who use sites like CBS eye iMobile likely won't have a clue about copyright, moral rights, commercial opportunities etc. So you have to ask the question whether it's ok to exploit this ignorance. I've gone on record often enough about this and my personal opinion is: no, of course it's not ok, and neither is it ok to assume that contributors don't care about these issues. CBS should spell it out in plain English and take their chances:
We're going to own anything you send us and if humanly possible we'll broadcast it and sell it on around the world for $$$ without every paying you a cent.
So what can you do on iMobile? Well, as a contributor, you can upload pics and videos from your mobile phone. You can be a news reporter, if you stumble upon a story, or you can show people the weather in your neck of the woods. Failing that, you can 'cover' politics or sport. As a viewer, you can do all the standard vote'n'comment'n'track'n'share stuff.
What you can't do is make sense of any of the content on the site because, like iReport, it's a shambles. It's a shambles because nobody is concerned with turning contributor uploads into a halfway meaningful product.
And so, again, we have a mainstream media org launching a citizen journalism service because a) it ticks a box that's been bugging them for a while, and b) they might, just might, occasionally get valuable breaking news content that keeps them ahead of the competition.
So it's worth doing, but only worth doing badly.]]>
$4.6m... for, erm, what?tag:frontlineclub.com,2008:/blogs/kyle//56.28942008-04-12T21:32:59Z2008-12-11T15:20:56ZCitizen journalism outfit CJReport.com is suitably chuffed to raise $4.6m in funding from Sequoia Capital, an a+ venture capital company. So what does CJReport.com do? On CJReport, anyone can edit (even anonymously) and start contributing to stories in the usual...Kyle MacRae
CJReport.com is suitably chuffed to raise $4.6m in funding from Sequoia Capital, an a+ venture capital company. So what does CJReport.com do?
On CJReport, anyone can edit (even anonymously) and start contributing to stories in the usual categories (business, technology, entertainment, …). Users can write their own stories and upload their own photos, or simply submit a story from somewhere else on the web. Think of it as a Wikipedia for news.
Co-founder Laurent Van Winckel said the money will be used to open new offices in Kuala Lumpur, Kathmandu and San Francisco along with other cities to reach a broader range of citizen journalists in the local areas.
But visit the home page and what do you see? A logical start is the Latest News section, where we find... oops.
The top two stories, repeated in the World News section, are April Fools spoofs, still on the site 11 days after they 'broke'.
The fifth story down with a dateline of Sunday, March 30 2008 caught my eye for a different reason:
Python bursts after swallowing alligator
Yup, that's the same bursting python that we read about in 2005. Same pic, too... and damn near the same text, slightly churned.
The original story on BBC News:
An unusual clash between a 6-foot (1.8m) alligator and a 13-foot (3.9m) python has left two of the deadliest predators dead in Florida's swamps. The Burmese python tried to swallow its fearsome rival whole but then exploded. The remains of the two giant reptiles were found by astonished rangers in the Everglades National Park. The rangers say the find suggests that non-native Burmese pythons might even challenge alligators' leading position in the food chain in the swamps.
A very unusual clash between a 13-foot (3.9 meters) python and a 6-foot (1.8 meters) alligator has left two of the deadliest predators dead in Florida's swamps. The Burmese python tried to gobble up its fearsome rival whole but then exploded. The remains of the two prodigious reptiles were discovered by surprised rangers in the Everglades National Park. The rangers say the find implies that non-native Burmese pythons might even challenge alligators' leading position in the food chain in the swamps.
Elsewhere, the lead story is just farcical:
Olympics flame arrives in Beijing amid protests
Updated 1 week 5 days 10 hours ago
Ah, I could go on by why bother? It's too easy. We, the readers, are being taken for mugs, as are contributors. As so often, there is zero - ZERO - value in this crap. So good luck with the investment, Sequoia. CJReport doesn't need an injection of millions of dollars; it's crying out for sodium thiopental.
Maybe Jason Calacanis will bring in the bacon for Sequoia with Mahalo - a site I'll be returning to shortly because possibly, just possibly, it points the way forward.
UPDATE: Gah, so it was an April Fool gag. Well spotted, John Kelly (in the comments). I'll be wearing the dunce's hat in the corner for a while.]]>
MSM moves qik-ly for oncetag:frontlineclub.com,2008:/blogs/kyle//56.28932008-04-12T20:08:30Z2008-12-11T15:20:56ZIn an earlier post, I echoed Steve Outing's assumption that mainstream media would be characteristically slow to adapt to and adopt the potential of live video from mobile phones. So it was a surprise and a pleasure to read about...Kyle MacRae
earlier post, I echoed Steve Outing's assumption that mainstream media would be characteristically slow to adapt to and adopt the potential of live video from mobile phones.
So it was a surprise and a pleasure to read about the Sacramento Bee using Qik to capture the procession of the Olympic torch through San Francisco. As reported in Journalism.co.uk:
US newspaper The Sacramento Bee has been using mobile phone technology to relay video of protests against the Olympic torch procession, in San Francisco, in real time. By using Qik, a technology that allows live streaming from videophones to a flash player embedded on a website or blog, reporters were able broadcast moving images as events unfolded - effectively replicating a live TV news service at a fraction of the cost and with the flexibility to move freely and quickly.
Excellent work.]]>
10 things we can say about citizen journalism...tag:frontlineclub.com,2008:/blogs/kyle//56.28922008-03-31T20:01:04Z2008-12-11T15:20:56ZOr more precisely, 10 personal reflections on the interface between CJ and the mainstream media. 1) When you turn on the user-generated tap, you risk getting drowned in content. 2) Most of this content will be crap. Putting a badge...Kyle MacRae
can will always be manipulated.
7) Some people will contribute valuable content for the sake of contributing.
8) Others won’t.
9) There’s no necessary correlation between the value of content and the motivation of the content creator. But punters are getting smarter. They’re not so inclined to give valuable stuff away.
10) The killer business model for citizen journalism is… [fill in the blank]
Obviously I could be completely wrong about point 6 (and all the others). Maybe a community can moderate itself and set and follow a meaningful agenda without external guidance.
But I doubt it. Let’s have another look at CNN’s iReport.com (a site I had fun with here). In the ‘Newsiest Now’ showcase panel today, there are seven stories. Six of these concern living with autism, and the other has pictures of tornado damage in Oklahoma.
So what’s going on? Clearly, the community wants to talk about autism. That may seem commendable. It’s setting its own agenda. You could argue that CNN is providing a platform that will spread awareness of autistic spectrum disorders, which has to be a Good Thing.
I would argue that the system has been manipulated by a special interest group. It’s probably unintentional but nevertheless an echo chamber has formed. Today, iReport is all about autism; tomorrow, it might be a Mac versus PC debate, or shark versus crocodile, or literally anything else at all. You choose. Anything goes. There's zero focus.
Where’s the news value here? Why would you return to iReport tomorrow? It’s just noise.
Sure, from CNN's perspective, that's ok. Its editors can syphon off the occasional valuable nugget without devoting any resources to filtering the noise. I get it. It's kind of smart, in the short term. But it's all too easy - and always will be - for special interests to shout loudest and dominate. Is that sustainable? How long can such a site keep its audience or its contributors?
UPDATE: Rick Waghorn spots that iReport has added an explanation about what 'newsiest now' actually means - and suggests, rightly in my first-glance opinion, that they're editing by the back door.]]>
Fast-track to the deadpool?tag:frontlineclub.com,2008:/blogs/kyle//56.28912008-03-26T14:24:59Z2008-12-11T15:20:56ZIt takes nerve to launch a new citizen journalism website right now. It’s already a crowded space – shortly, I predict, to become markedly less crowded as tried-and-failed business models hit the buffers – but some opportunities surely remain. And...Kyle MacRae
iConflict.com, which launches today. It’s shtick is compartmentalising the news:
iConflict brings you the latest news on international conflicts and crises. We’ll leave gossip and meaningless news to other sites. That’s what makes iConflict different.
Fair enough. What can we say about this CJ startup on the evidence so far?
- First, aside from the logo, which I imagine swallowed 80% of the launch budget, it looks just ghastly. Blue and brown colour schemes are not often seen on the web. This is why.
- The terms of use are short on detail. This, for instance:
By posting content on the Service, a user is giving ICONFLICT the right to display such content on the Service and its affiliated publications and to distribute such content and use such content for promotional and marketing purposes.
Does or does that not mean that contributors retain copyright to their own original content? If so, say so explicitly. If not, be transparent. Does iConflict have the right to syndicate contributor content commercially e.g. sell print or broadcast right to a hot picture or video? It's not clear.
- The intro video on the home page is just embarrassing. Somebody should tell them. A pretty girl with a hat and a deadpan drole is just not the draw they clearly believe it to be.
- There’s a huge advert just below the video and more ads lower down the page. Why on earth would a startup that’s going to rely 100% on growing a community so compromise its integrity and alienate potential members on day one? Build the community first and then introduce ads when you have valuable screen space to sell. Ugh.
- The conflict map is lame. You'd think the whole of China is at war, that Somalia is all peace and quiet, and that the Democratic Republic of Congo isn't currently home to the most vicious conflict since the Second World War. For a proper conflict map, check out the excellent interactive map from Reuters AlertNet here.
- Content. There isn’t much to speak of, and what is there is second-hand and dubious.
A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed, putting an even larger portion of glacial ice at risk, scientists said. Global warning is being blamed for the dramatic occurrence.
Um... in what way is this a story about conflict? Where’s the link to the source article (a quick Google shows that it's here). Where’s the picture credit? Which scientists are being quoted? Who is blaming global warming? When did this happen? Come on guys, this is basic stuff – who, what, when, where, why.
To be fair, content will might come from the community and iConflict needs to provide a platform to attract a community in the first place. But as Sanjana Hattotuwa notes in this critique:
Soft launches, waiting until the content is ripe, viral marketing, letting the content promote itself, cross fertilisation of and integration with other CJ sites, true mashups (there is not a shred of evidence on iConflict of mashups of any kind) are all marketing strategies, amongst many others, that are far more sustainable and effective than the exceedingly vulgar hype that iConflict expects us to believe that is a far cry from reality.
But ultimately none of this much matters. It’s all relatively trivial and can be easily fixed (some of in an afternoon by a web designer).
What does matter, and matters hugely, is the tone. Reporting from a conflict zone is not a game. It’s not something that half-arsed citizen journalists do for fun or the kudos of a credit. It’s a serious business where, whether you're a professional or an amateur, balls, skill and good sense are absolute pre-requisities. It might get you killed - and I dare you’re a damn site more likely to get killed if you point a camera at the soldier who’s got you in his sights. Where’s the acknowledgment of this on iConflict? Where are the guidelines? Where's the evidence that the people behind iConflict have the slightest experience of reporting from conflict zones or a shred of credibility for inviting others to do so?
There MIGHT be a way to engage citizen journalists in conflict reporting, and there is a glimmer of potential in this segment from the introductory video:
We have it covered because you have it covered. With so many people living and working in conflict zones, the ability of citizen journalists to contribute news has never been greater.
But it’s going to take more than a girl with Mogadon eyes and a website with the production values of a student project to engage people whose lives are being literally blown apart.
[video:youtube:P_TUkrcYA7Y]]]>
'Free' content doesn't mean free contenttag:frontlineclub.com,2008:/blogs/kyle//56.28902008-03-21T21:18:25Z2008-12-11T15:20:56ZI had a call from Lloyd Davis last week when BBC London wanted to use one of his video clips. You can see it on his blog here, and also here. Lloyd was happy to help but – naturally and...Kyle MacRae
Lloyd Davis last week when BBC London wanted to use one of his video clips. You can see it on his blog here, and also here. Lloyd was happy to help but – naturally and quite rightly, in my view – he wanted payment. Not a fortune, just a fair commercial rate for broadcast use. Trouble was, he wasn't sure what to charge.
I’m not surprised. Brokering deals with the mainstream media is hard, particularly when you don’t have inside knowledge – as is the case with nearly everybody. But it’s also hard for the buyer, who would much prefer a one-click licensing channel than having to negotiate directly with non-professional photographers and film-makers.
This was one of the drivers behind Scoopt, which sits between punter and press to connect the dots. It works fine when people send their pictures and videos to the agency on an exclusive basis because they care more about a potential sale than self-publishing.
But for people familiar with blogs, photo-sharing sites and other social media tools, losing the right to publish your own content is a deeply unnatural step. Lloyd posted his video on his own blog to share it with his readers. It seems entirely reasonable, does it not, that he should still be able to charge a fair price when his content is used commercially? The BBC had no problem with this.
However, this is where the bridge between citizen journalism and the mainstream media gets wobbly. The traditional agency model was built on having exclusive access to content, and managing rights on that basis. When somebody sticks a pic on Flickr or a video on Blip, the model breaks. It is difficult for an agency to license content for $$$ when anybody can lift it from the public domain for free (conveniently ignoring copyright on the grounds that… well, who’s going to sue?). It is inconvenient when the content in question is out there in the wild and not an SKU in some internal database. And it instantly turns any content-sharing site into a potential competitor to the agency.
Surely this is absurd. There is no inherent contradiction in pictures, videos, writing and any other content being shared freely on one hand and sold on the other depending entirely on end use i.e. whether the end use is non-commercial or commercial. This is the way it HAS to be if mainstream media is to get its hands on amateur content. Forcing people to make an either/or choice – either send content to an agency and lose the right to publish it on yourself or publish it yourself but lose agency representation – just doesn’t work for the vast majority of pictures and videos.
Or rather it does work for that one-in-a-million super-valuable exclusive news story that really must be carefully rights-managed, but the citizen journalism space is far wider than that.
At Scoopt, we invited Flickr users to tag their pics with keyword ‘scoopt’ for commercial licensing despite having them in the public domain (and there are still over 30,000 scoopt-tagged pics on there today despite pulling this project a year ago). We also worked with Creative Commons on their early experiment with dual licensing, whereby a CC license would govern non-commercial rights as now but click through to an appointed agency for commercial rights.
This is precisely the kind of license that Lloyd needs for his video. Creative Commons is still heading down this route [PDF link] with its CC+ initiative, and very good luck to them. Simple, painless dual-licensing has to be the way forward for everybody concerned.]]>
Does Qik change everything?tag:frontlineclub.com,2008:/blogs/kyle//56.28892008-03-15T14:50:47Z2008-12-11T15:20:56ZIf you're not already familiar with it, check out Qik. It's an application and web service that lets you stream video from a mobile phone to the web, live. Why is this important? For me it's one of these wow-this-could-revolutionise-journalism...Kyle MacRae
Qik. It's an application and web service that lets you stream video from a mobile phone to the web, live.
Why is this important? For me it's one of these wow-this-could-revolutionise-journalism moments. It's similar to the widespread adoption of cameraphones during the past few years - the technological driver behind Scoopt and similar citizen journalism services - but cooler in three important respects:
- We're talking video, not just stills. This is live outside broadcast unit in your pocket.
- The storage and transport issues just go away. You no longer have to save a video clip on your phone's memory card and figure out how to send it somewhere useful; you just fire up Qik on your phone and stream live video over any wi-fi or mobile network connection. (I'll always be haunted by the Scoopt member who shot some cracking cameraphone video within three minutes of the Buncefield explosions - and then took 18 hours to submit it because getting it off the phone was difficult.)
- Viewers can interact with you through Qik while you're streaming. Their comments appear on your mobile's screen so you can pose audience questions to an interview subject. It's already happening and there's no 'off the record'
It's not perfect. Quality levels are ok, not brilliant (but getting better); and you can't edit a video once you've streamed it (though I imagine this will change). But surely this is a phenomenally powerful tool for journalism? Doesn't it change everything when you have a gazillion CJs shooting live video of everythng that happens everywhere?
Well, maybe.
Steve Outing gets it spot on here:
Hey, mainstream media companies: Jump on this now. Don’t wait for yet another big Internet trend to go huge before deciding then to experiment (as has happened SO many times before with other things). Let’s move a bit faster this time, eh?
He's right. There's a fantastic opportunity for the mainstream here. Sure, the challenges are familiar - corraling and filtering a mass of content, extracting and sharing value and revenue, and so forth - but this is something that every news org with an interest in video (and that means all of them) should be actively promoting.
Will they? Probably not - but I'd certainly like to hear of any examples. Has Qik already struck partner relationsips with media outlets? Don't know, but I'll ask. Is there an opportunity for a UGC video agency to sit between punters and the media to filter, edit and license newsworthy footage? Maybe, but sooner or later mainstream media WILL get it and reach out directly to contributors ("send us all yer videos for $$$!!!"), at which point customers become competitors.
So how can journalism in the round best exploit the power of Qik and similar services? What content-gathering models would work?
One of the most interesting comments to come out of the Journalism Enterprise and Entrepreneurship unconference yesterday was made by Rick Waghorn in relation to the Knight News Challenge: Why don't the major news organisations in the UK get together to incentivise innovation in journalism here? It's patently in their/our own interest to figure out how to move journalism forwards, and the best ideas will always come from entrepreneurial ideas people. So let's give them a real incentive to work on industry-changing projects. Qik could be a starting point: given the potential, what should we do with it?
I'll follow up and report back...
Meanwhile, if you'll forgive the poor lighting, dodgy audio and spurious subject matter (I shouldn;t be allowed near a camera), here's Hubdub founder Nigel Eccles discussing Pakistani geopolitics with our cab driver after JEEcamp last night, streamed live en route to Birmingham airport.
Forget the quality - focus on the potential!
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'Citizen journalism' without the scare quotes...tag:frontlineclub.com,2008:/blogs/kyle//56.28882008-03-11T15:39:47Z2008-12-11T15:20:54ZIt’s good to be back at the Frontline Club. My first encounter with the club was when I was invited to speak at an event way back in September 2005, when citizen journalism/user-generated content/blogging was a hot topic and Scoopt,...Kyle MacRae
Frontline Club.
My first encounter with the club was when I was invited to speak at an event way back in September 2005, when citizen journalism/user-generated content/blogging was a hot topic and Scoopt, the company I had started two months earlier, was part of the buzz. It was the usual schlep for me from Glasgow to London but the club offered to pay my expenses and gave me a room for the night. I was so impressed with the club and the accommodation that I swapped my expenses for a year’s membership. I’ve remained a member ever since and use the club’s bedrooms - thankfully now expanded beyond the initial two rooms – whenever I stay in London.
As for the event itself, it was memorable to me for two reasons. First, when the concept of ‘citizen journalism’ was taking a hammering – those pesky cameraphone-toting punters aren’t to be trusted, don't you know; everyone’s a Photoshop expert these days – club founder Vaughan Smith chipped in with (and I paraphrase here): “Bollocks! I’ve seen the most appalling fakery on the part of professional journalists and it’s nonsense to suggest that members of the public are more likely to fake picturesâ€. Hurrah, thought I, feeling marginally less the whipping boy for a moment.
Secondly, Simon Bucks from Sky News made his infamous comment about not going to a citizen surgeon went you need a brain operation. It raised a good laugh but Simon himself has since said he thought it was patronising.
(A more cutting comment was an aside from Simon when I was asked from the floor whether Scoopt would handle really intrusive celebrity content. I demurred and he quipped: “Well, you’ll never make any money!â€)
Funny thing is, I didn’t think the surgery comment was particularly patronising. Although I was nominally representing The People in my role as Scoopt founder, my own background was in journalism and I believed then as I do now that professional journalism is hugely important. I was always sceptical of the crowd-sourcing hyperbole so in vogue at the time, and still today in some quarters. For me, the debate was not whether amateur content was a wholesale alternative to professional journalism but rather whether it had a valid part to play in newsgathering that could enrich the whole. I think that argument has been won and don’t intend to rehash it here. Nor do I have the heart or patience to worry about what to call this, er, thing - citizen journalism will have to do.
So here in the Frontline blog pages, I’ll be casting a sceptical, personal eye over current developments. Some of the stuff happening right now is exciting and potentially disruptive. Some of it is just plain silly.
Let's try to figure out which is which.]]>