Podcast and video blogging resources

If you are in to podcasting or video blogging then you should take a look at OurMedia, 'the global home for grassroots media'. It says, 'The Learning Center is a rich educational resource for everything you wanted to know about user-created citizens' media'.

Most of the content is available under a creative commons license. The learning center has tips and how-to's useful to any blogger,

• Video
• Audio
• Multimedia
• Images
• Text

There are also some important links for any serious blogger such as,

I' looking forward to working my way through the audio sections,  I am involved with a project which is just starting an infrequent series of podcasts and I have been looking around for music.

From a link on the OurMedia site, I found OpenMusicArchive.org

Most of the music seem to of been recorded long ago but Podcasts (high tech) seem to fit with jazz music (low tec) recorded from the 1920's era. May need to use Audacity to clean up some of the hiss from the recordings.

Posted by Bob Toovey on 08 December 2006
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Dan Gillmore on the demise of the professional photojournalist

Dan Gillmor has written an interesting piece about digital camera phones and their use in snapping 'news as it happens'. Their seems to be a little confusion as some think he is writing about the general demise of photographic reporters. The phenomenon of camera phones is creating a flood of pictures taken by the public of news as it happens.

There are almost a billion people who are using cell phones around the world and the number is growing in many countries at 20 to 30 per cent a year. So the chances of some one taking a news worthy photo has got to be fairly high.

I agree with Dan in that the general pubic will have an increasing role with taking news worthy pictures 'as it happens' but there is still a need for in depth photographic journalism.

Posted by Bob Toovey on 06 December 2006
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Yahoo and Reuters new CJ venture

I have just seen on Gigi Om an article about a new citizen journalism effort by Yahoo and Reuters . They have “announced that they will start incorporating user generated photos and videos of news events into their offerings.” But they are not going to be paying for it.

'You Witness' allows you to upload photo's and video's and if suitable they will be selected for news items. The home page has links to some useful sites, how-to's and more. As I said, the contributers will not being paid for any photo's or video's used which I think will put most off. Especially as there are sites like Scoopt which do.

Posted by Bob Toovey on 05 December 2006
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BBC News 24 to feature user generated material

I guess I am a bit late on this but it seems the BBC news channel, News 24, has launched a new programme based on user-generated material. 'Your News' has started as a pilot programme  and if all goes well, will become a regular item. It will carry stories, news and video. The BBC gets around 10,000 emails a day with suggestions for news etc.

"Presented by Richard Bilton and Laura Jones, the show will contain weekly features that will look at news reports covering issues raised by members of the public (called Your Story) and a section where reporters try to find answers to questions sent in to the BBC by the public (Your Questions)."

Found on Journalism.co.uk

Posted by Bob Toovey on 01 December 2006
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Surfing freedom with Psiphon

Citizen Journalism and freedom of speech are interlinked. It's fine to have the ability to blog about news as you see it or to write about what is happening where you are but what do you do when you own country censors the Internet and blocks access?

Many countries restrict access for surfers so they are unable to see what is being written about their Government. So the Citizen Lab, which is based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto has created a new program called Psiphon works through social networks. A server type program is loaded on to a PC in a country with free access. They can then give contacts in censored countries a unique web address, login and password, which enables the restricted users to freely browse the web through an encrypted connection to the proxy server.

This should enable users in blocked countries the ability  to surf the Internet however they are still being warned that they do this at their own peril. Bypassing censorship could violate laws, and they are urged to consider potential consequences of doing so.

Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, said, "Governments have militarized their censorship efforts to an incredible extent so we're trying to reverse some of that and restore that promise that the internet once had for unfettered access and communication."

Link to BBC article

Posted by Bob Toovey on 28 November 2006
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Countries black listed by Reporters Without Borders

The Human Rights group Reports Without Borders (also Reporters Sans Frontieres, hence RSF) has released a list of black listed countries that they believe are suppressing freedom of expression on the internet. According to a BBC report, “The civil liberties pressure group has organised a 24-hour protest, inviting web users to vote for the worst offending countries. Visitors to the RSF website are also invited to leave a voice message for Yahoo's co-founder Jerry Yang, expressing their views on the firm's involvement in China. “

The black listed countries are...

• Belarus
• Burma
• China
• Cuba
• Egypt
• Iran
• North Korea
• Saudi Arabia
• Syria
• Tunisia
• Turkmenistan
• Uzbekistan
• Vietnam

See my previous posting about Microsofts stance on the situation in China. The Human Rights group also asked for help from the internet community...

"We wanted to mobilise net users so that when we lobby certain countries we can say that the concerns are not just ours but those of thousands of internet users around the world"

Lets hope this does some good!

Posted by Bob Toovey on 08 November 2006
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Micosoft says it would pull out of China

Fred Tipson, senior policy counsel for Microsoft has stated that because of concerns over the repressive regime, it might be forced to reconsider its business in China. Sounds nice that a company as large and as powerful as Microsoft, is willing to flex a bit of muscle. Fred Tipson's statement was made at the Internet Governance Forum recently held in Athens. Link to BBC article

However Internet companies have come under fire for dealing with oppressive Governments like China. Yahoo has handed over data about one of it's users in China which allowed the authorities there to jail him for 8 years. And this is not the first time.

“Reporters Without Borders today condemned the US firm Yahoo! for handing over data on one of its users in China which enabled the authorities there to send him to prison for eight years, the second such case that has come to light in recent months.

It called on Yahoo! to supply a list of all cyberdissidents it has provided data on, beginning with 81 people in China whose release the worldwide press freedom organization is currently campaigning for.”

More on this from RConversation

Even Amnesty International are taking notice of jailed bloggers, acting on behalf of a whole new category of prisoners of conscience.

"People have been locked up just for expressing their views in an email or on a website," said Steve Ballinger of Amnesty."

More here

I don't mean to be too cynical but, with Yahoo apparently selling out to non-democratic Governments and Microsoft willing to pull out, who looks to be the bad guy? Going one up is always good for business even if you are meaning to be good.

For more info on bloggers and oppression take a look at Committee to Protect Bloggers

Posted by Bob Toovey on 02 November 2006
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More on dealing with plagiarism

As a follow up to a previous posting about plagiarism, I have found another item about it on 'Lorelle on WordPress'. Here she talks about what you can and can't do about when it happens. Her words of wisdom come from 25 years of dealing with copyright issues with regard to writers, authors and photographers.

However she does talk about 'when' as oppose to 'if'...

'First, you noticed that I didn’t say “if” someone steals your content. That was on purpose. With the glut of information on the Internet, it’s now a matter of “when” not “if”.'

Link to What to do when someone steals your content, via Problogger

Posted by Bob Toovey on 28 October 2006
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Daily Tabloid asks readers to be Editors

The new business models for newspapers is still being worked out. The Internet is just too much competition. Many are ignoring it completely hoping it will just go away. However some are embracing it or at least experimenting with the idea of incorporating Citizen Journalism.

One such newspaper attempting to incorporate 'user submitted content' is the UK's Sun newspaper, well tabloid to me more accurate. Famous for it's Page 3 Girl feature, basicly a topless girl on page 3 of the paper.

Their new section on the main Sun website is called MySun. It features blogs written by contributers which is monitored by a team of 6 whose sole aim is the  running the project in which a community editor, hired specifically to run the feature, oversees a team of editorial moderators.

I picked this comment from the Journalism.co.uk website item about the Suns new move...

"Our idea is to make Sun readers the next editors of the website. One of the key drivers of the Sun is how much the readers get involved. They really respond to us, they write in, they ring in, they have the attitude that it's their paper and we are just the staff that look after it for them," Pete Picton, Sun online editor, told Journalism.co.uk.

It seems that Citizen Journalism or 'user submitted content' is not just for the broad sheets. Tabloids can do it too. So who is next I wonder?

Posted by Bob Toovey on 25 October 2006
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Wal-Mart gets it wrong about corporate blogging

I recently wrote about how Public Relations companies were producing fake news reports, reportage looking as though as it was created by the TV station but in fact created by the PR company for the benefit of their clients.

Looks like they are at it again with something similar.

According to CNN, a PR company has been blogging on behalf of Wal-Mart, pretending to be grass-roots support for the retailer. Working Families for Wal-mart and subsidiary site Paid Critics are written by three employees of PR firm Edelman.

Corporate blogging is only just taking off and it does have big benefits for those who venture in this. However, 'fake blogging' is just going to put people off. Transparency is the key in generating trust weather you are reporting the news or just trying to communicate with your customers.

Posted by Bob Toovey on 22 October 2006
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