Fragments of Mine

SOJo: Student of Online Journalism

2007-01-21T03:59:00.000-05:00

...is up and running at www.megantaylor.org

This is the last post to Fragments of Mine. SOJo has a different RSS feed, so head on over and check it out.

Moving...

2007-01-20T13:14:00.000-05:00

Fragments of Mine is in the process of becoming SOJo: Student of Online Journalim. I will post the new Web site and feed when everything is up and running.

Reporters Without Borders

2007-01-17T16:56:00.001-05:00

The Internet redefines the limitations of travel, of money, of physical possibility. Except:

24 Hours Against Internet Censorship allows Web surfers to fight against censorship in 13 countries by submitting comments to an animated map.

The 13 "Enemies of the Internet": Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

I'm a little surprised that Iraq and Afghanistan aren't on the list.

New York Times Blogs and Newspaper Web site stats

2007-01-17T15:51:00.001-05:00

The New York Times has staff blogging about:

Bits - newest gadgets and trends
First Look - new features and services
Carpetbagger - movie awards
The Lede - news stories
The Caucus - elections
Pogue's Posts - technology
DealBook - business
The Pour - wine, beer and spirits
Diner's Journal - restaurants
The Public Editor's Journal - responds to reader complaints/comments
Dream Home Diaries - the epic tale of home construction
Screens - Web video and media
The Empire Zone - politics in NY, NJ, And Conn.
Tierney Lab - science
The Fifth Down - fantasy football
Wheels - cars

In addition, this article reports that newspaper blog traffic has tripled from 1.2 million viewers a year ago to 3.8 million in December 2006.

Blog pages accounted for 13 percent of overall visits to newspaper sites in that month, up from 4 percent a year earlier. Total visitors to the top newspaper sites rose 9 percent to 29.9 million.

Lookin' good!

Novels in newspapers

2007-01-17T15:23:00.001-05:00

A long, long time ago, newspapers printed novels in serial form along with the news. But it's been quite a while since fiction had a place in the news business. No, wait, that's wrong too...

Anyway, the point is that The Washington Post is posting a fiction novel in serial form on it's Web site.

As newspaper Web sites move away from the traditional design of printed news, it's interesting to see how the content evolves as well.

One thing: When fact and fiction overlap, how do you know which is which?

Goggles Boggles: Applications of Google Maps mashup game for Journalism

2007-01-17T00:57:00.001-05:00

Goggles lets you fly a cartoon airplane over 21 locations, drawing its imagery from Google Maps. The plane is controlled using the arrow keys, speed is controlled with A and Z, and you can even fire by hitting the space bar.

How does this apply to journalism? What if you could simulate the flight of a plane crash? Follow the path of the planes, see the landmark, etc? Simulate air-bombing in the Middle East (or wherever)?

Maybe that's brushing too close to reality for some, but wouldn't you want to see the detailed flight path of a burning plane?

Take it out of the context of planes. How about trains and automobiles? People?

Kim's wilderness wanderings could be followed as if we were right there. Tagged wildlife could be viewed anywhere without leaving the comfy chair at your desk.

Mavs ride into the Web with a Wiki

2007-01-17T00:04:00.001-05:00

From Micro Persuasion:

The Dallas Mavericks have a wiki where fans are encouraged to document games and submit photographs. This may be the first wiki in professional sports.

From MavsWiki:

The Official MavsWiki is a collaboration of Mavs history, official stats and the all important FAN perspective. Editing of this site is open to all and we encourage everyone to share thoughts, comments and photos of their experiences with the Dallas Mavericks.

Now that's citizen journalism. What would happen if the same idea was applied to online news?

More on Data

2007-01-15T12:42:00.000-05:00

Looks like I had good timing. Check out some of these posts for more on CAR.

My affinity with numbers is pretty weak. My education in Excel is elementary. I'll be looking for a tutor soon.

Florida Times-Union and The Scoop

2007-01-15T00:47:00.000-05:00

The Scoop is an amazing Web site where Computer Assisted Reporting is documented and then sorted into categories by any means your geeky heart could desire.

Today's entry is from the Florida Times-Union, a piece called Homicide 360.

Writers Jim Schoettler, Paul Pinkham and Steve Patterson researched the 364 homicides - whether criminal, accidental or justifiable - that occurred between July 1, 2003 and June 30, 2006. That included learning the backgrounds of victims and killers.

Schoettler and Pinkham studied police investigative reports, prosecutors' files and autopsy findings, then recorded the information in a computer database. They interviewed killers and cops, prosecutors and defense lawyers, judges and academics, crime witnesses and victims' families.

With support from Duval County's chief judge, homicide suspects' confidential juvenile court files and pre-sentence reports were opened. Patterson coordinated and analyzed database records of each killing and collected other records. He also developed a database that tracked homicide suspects' prior arrests and the outcomes of those cases.

I just finished a course on public records last semester, and it's really cool to see what can be done with some patience and an affinity for numbers.

The feature is also a great example of how news stories should work online. From any one place in the story, you can move to any other place. Beautiful.

Gainesville, Gainesville

2007-01-14T18:48:00.001-05:00

I saw this last week, in the parking lot next to what used to be T.I.S. Bookstore and is now Textbook Brokers.

As I walked past, I had the sense to pull out my phone and snap a picture (I would have stopped to talk but I was running late for class). He called after me, and asked me to pull a didgeridoo out of the knapsack leaned against the wall. I did and handed it to him, and he proceeded to continue hula hooping while playing the instrument.

This is why I love Gainesville.

Guest Editors on YouTube: Training for the future?

2007-01-14T13:57:00.001-05:00

YouTube will be selecting one user each month to be the Editor of the YouTube homepage. Participants will submit 10 videos they think belong on the homepage, along with a video of themselves explaining their choices.

Finally, we’re opening up the programming of our home page to guest editors. We’ll pick one user a month to take over for a few days. All you’ll have to do is send us 10 videos you’d like to place on home (make sure they adhere to the terms of service!) along with a short video about why you chose what you did and how you found the experience. If you’re interested in participating, please let me know.

via the YouTube Blog

I assume there would be a way to discern how successful each participant is in selecting "good" videos for the YouTube homepage, be it page views, comments, whathaveyou. Allowing a YouTube member to be the Editor of the homepage may also bring insights into what the community wants, as well as the individual's preferences. Could a brief stint as the Editor of a popular page result in an unexpected learning experience? Participants also have to describe the experience in their personal video, so maybe we'll find out.

How to get a job in Journalism pt. 2

2007-01-12T19:52:00.001-05:00

In response to the challenge:

I have and continue to develop my own Web site: MeganTaylor: Jill of All Trades

I use Google Reader to keep track of over 100 blogs and news Web sites.

Obviously, I maintain a blog. However, I do have trouble making time to comment on other blogs. (New Year's Resolution #34)

I walk around with a digital camera and my phone, which also captures photos, video and audio.

Oh yea, and I'm taking Mindy McAdams's class at UF. Heh.

What are you doing to get the job?

Who does News Web sites well?

2007-01-12T19:44:00.001-05:00

This is a little dated, but still interesting:

Best Use of RSS Feeds: The Houston Chronicle a job of making its RSS feeds clearly available from its home page. While this may seem obvious to some, a large majority of newspaper sites make users go through several clicks to the RSS feeds. The fact that the Chronicle makes them accessible directly from its homepage is somewhat unique.

Best Blog Network: The Boston Globe has an enormous network of journalist and citizen blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. Definitely worth checking out, especially if you live in the Boston area.

Best Use of Bookmarking: For newspapers, the Washington Post is a great example of a site that gives users a variety of options for external bookmarking. For magazines, Sports Illustrated the only publication that allows both internal and external bookmarking options (users can save articles on their si.com account or their facebook account).

Best Commenting Features: There are a few newspapers that have fantastic mechanisms for user comments on articles. For example, on the Philadelphia Inquirer website, users cannot comment on every article. But the site does enable comments on popular articles about local news or special interest items. On the main section pages, articles with commenting functions are highlighted by a special icon. The Morning Call and the Virginian-Pilot take a different approach, allowing comments on just about every article on the site. Also noteworthy is the commenting functions for The Guardian (UK). This publication has a separate site dedicated to user comments, called Comment is Free.

Best Use of Tags: We found three magazine websites that used tags: US Weekly, Popular Science, and Parenting. All three sites have tag clouds on their homepage, which makes searching for article pretty easy.

From Print Media Websites: Who’s Getting it Right?

How to get a job in Journalism

2007-01-12T19:34:00.001-05:00

Learn how to make Web pages, shoot video, gather and edit audio, read, write and comment on blogs. In other words, produce content. Make yourself visible online, not just as a person, but as a journalist.

Choose an RSS reader and use it! Find out what other people are doing and what they want to know about.

As Mindy McAdams reminds us, the future of Journalism is now, and it's online. Newspapers are reworking their newsrooms and budgets to develop strong online presences. Keep up, or be left behind.

From TheUndertone.org

2007-01-12T19:21:00.001-05:00

Where were you when UF became National Champions in football?

Megan Taylor:

I was enjoying a self-absorbed evening at home until my father called to tell me that the Gators were losing. He was watching the game on TV at the gym. Shrug. I'm the first to say that I'm not a fan of American football. A little later, a friend of the family called to tell me the Gators were winning. Darn. Now I'll be up all night listening to fireworks, car horns and yahoos, instead of getting some desperately needed sleep before my 7:25 a.m. class. Around midnight, I knew the Gators had indeed won the game. Well done. Now shut up out there so I can sleep!

UF Newsies

2007-01-11T21:35:00.001-05:00

The UF Newsies are officially published to Underton e, a segment of the Gainesville Sun online.

Look for our accounts of the National Championship, plus feature stories about life at the University of Florida.

The Importance of Editing

2007-01-09T22:14:00.001-05:00

My editing class began today.

Here are a few helpful resources:

Exercises from the Copy Editor's Handbook for Newspapers

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy

The Scriptorium - our class blog

Exercise Central for AP Style

ACES Online Quizzes

Your Dictionary

A Spelling Test

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

The Grouchy Grammarian

The HyperTextBook

I really think the key to good editing is focus more than anything else. I've always read a lot, and that gives me a good sense of what looks right or wrong, and my background in Linguistics helps to identify complex parts of speech. But unless I force myself to slow down and really look at each sentence, I still make sloppy mistakes.

Gator Football

2007-01-08T23:21:00.003-05:00

Congress got the day off to watch the Championship game.

At the end of the 3rd quarter, the score is 34-14, Gators.

I'm not a fan of the football, but an extra day off would've been nice.

First Day of School

2007-01-08T23:08:00.001-05:00

Today was the first day back at school. One of my classes, Mindy McAdams's Advanced Online Media Production, looks fantastic. The books are great, and I already have several ideas for our first assignment, basically "take this image and this graf and make it look pretty."

McAdams emphasized that this class would prepare us with the necessary tools for a job in journalism, with the industry's present need for people who know how to combine journalism with the Web. I still don't know whether I like reporting or Web production better, but you can never know too much, and I know I''l have fun with this class.

I think soon even the most basic reporting will require some knowledge of Internet tech, and reporters have to think of their stories in more layers than before. It's an interesting challenge.

Google Maps Mashups and what they're good for

2007-01-07T23:14:00.000-05:00

Mike Pegg over at Google Maps Mania posted a list of 50 things to do with Google Maps.

Some examples: find someone's house, beat traffic, check weather, find food, track a flight.

How could Google Maps and their Mashups be used in the news?

Track sex offenders, overlays for events across areas, track hurricanes and calculate possible damage to areas, crime and weather by zip code, show where construction and blocked roads may cause traffic, what companies or institutions are in an area, locations of non-profit organizations like blood drives and Goodwill drop-off points, show an influx or outflux of population in an area.

News Resources

2007-01-06T22:05:00.000-05:00

Former President Ford's death resulted, among the large headlines and formal events, in a post at LostRemote, with recommended resources for news coverage.

Here are some resources to help with coverage in the next few days: Website for the Ford Library, Official page for condolences, UCSB archive of Ford presidential papers (excellent historical resource with transcripts of significant papers), official biography, Wikipedia bio, TIME article from Sept. 9, 1974, famous quotes.

This kind of thing should be automatic shouldn't it? When I think about the resources available to newspapers, beyond what's available to the public, it makes me dizzy.

Health advice on YouTube

2007-01-06T22:00:00.000-05:00

Doctors in Wales are giving medical advice on YouTube.

7 videos cover topics from flu vaccination to blood sugar testing produced by Builth & Llanwrtyd Medical Practice in rural Wales.

Times Up!

2007-01-06T17:48:00.000-05:00

Back from Winter Break, with its lack of posts, computer-less existence and escapades with old friends. We'll go back to the grind starting tomorrow.

How to Get Famous

2006-12-23T12:41:00.000-05:00

Penelope Trunk outlines 6 steps to getting your blog mentioned in the news.

Google + NASA

2006-12-19T15:08:00.000-05:00

Google and NASA have joined forces to collaborate on "research, products, facilities, education and missions."

As the first in a series of joint collaborations, Google and Ames will focus on making the most useful of NASA's information available on the Internet. Real-time weather visualization and forecasting, high-resolution 3-D maps of the moon and Mars, real-time tracking of the International Space Station and the space shuttle will be explored in the future.

"This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars," said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin at Headquarters in Washington. "This innovative combination of information technology and space science will make NASA's space exploration work accessible to everyone," added Griffin.

NASA and Google intend to collaborate in a variety of areas, including incorporating agency data sets in Google Earth, focusing on user studies and cognitive modeling for human computer interaction, and science data search utilizing a variety of Google features and products.

What does this mean for journalism? Everyone will have access to the data NASA releases with Google. Journalists and citizens. Do we compete or work together? If journalists are the watchdogs, and the Internet makes it possible for everyone to watch, where do the journalists go?

How to get grades in just 3 hours

2006-12-18T23:40:00.000-05:00

University of Florida Fall semester grades were released tonight, unfortunately the Web site that would let me see them was down. Fortunately, a few roundabout methods have been discovered (go through the registrar's office Web site was my choice), and I am satisfied, if not thrilled, with the results of a very difficult semester.

More interesting is this graph showing the amount of time users have spent with online newspapers beginning in 2003 and predicted toward 2009 as opposed to time spent on consumer sites. Danger! The newspaper is crashing. But we already knew that didn't we?

Times...

2006-12-17T23:56:00.000-05:00

Everyone is surely tired by now of the ludicrous "People of the Year is You" award from Times Magazine.

So turn instead to this neat Google Maps mash-up at the New York Times on travel destinations for 2007. While clicking on the happy little Times symbol to read an article about that area is certainly cool, shouldn't there be another way to access that same information? I guess you can search for it in their nifty search bar, but perhaps a sidebar with links to each article would serve as well.

Find Related...Video?

2006-12-16T16:31:00.001-05:00

StumbleUpon now has StumbleVideo which brings videos from YouTube, Google Video and Myspace to your browser based on interests and ratings. Best of all, no downloads.

It just keeps getting easier to find what you didn't know you were looking for.

Find Related

2006-12-16T00:47:00.000-05:00

A number of services have surfaced which allow users to easily find and bookmark links related to the Web site being viewed.

StumbleUpon

Sphere

Yoono

I was thinking about how these can be used to find related articles in newspapers. In reporting, one article on a subject could easily lead to the next this way.

Could newspapers incorporate this technology into their own Web sites? And if so, would it be paper-specific or lead also to related article in other papers?

Creative Commons Ahoy!

2006-12-16T00:13:00.001-05:00

I wish this had happened a month ago when I was writing my article on Creative Commons. I would have changed the focus completely.

From Poynter Online:

GateHouse Media Debuts Creative Commons License for 96 News Sites
Williams reports that the CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivatives 2.5 license now covers "nearly all of the 121 dailies and weeklies they own in Massachusetts ...[including] 96 of the company's TownOnline sites, which are grouped within a portal for their many Eastern Massachusetts newspapers."

Little big

2006-12-15T17:23:00.000-05:00

My younger brother was published this week in The Clarion, the newspaper produced by G. W. Carver Middle School in Miami, Fla. He wrote an article on cheating in school, and how technological advances make it easier - and harder. They do not have an online edition - yet.

Wake up call!

2006-12-14T16:09:00.000-05:00

I posted a while back about how people get and handle their news (News Junky). Well, I got some feedback that I didn't expect.

A family friend emailed me in response that he watches various news channels and reads a few newspapers.

My parents don't get any further than the AOL homepage, watch the 10 p.m. news, and read the paper (The Miami Herald) on the weekends.

My younger siblings spend their time online browsing Myspace and other social networking sites, which I guess qualifies as person-specific news.

I had to explain to a friend of mine what RSS does.

Not so much what I had expected to find out. Sometimes I pay more attention to innovation in technology when I should be paying attention to people.

Multilanguage Tech?

2006-12-12T22:14:00.000-05:00

I'm in Miami for the Winter Break, and chanced into conversation with a family that speaks Spanish and minimal English.

While trying to explain what I'm studying and what I'd like to do with myself after college, I had a lot of trouble finding the right words to describe what I do. I ended up using Spanglish, examples and sign language to make myself clear.

I'm fluent in Spanish, but I don't have the vocabulary for many of the things I do. How do I describe the intricacies of the Web, how I bought a domain and wrote my own Web site, blogging, and such in another language? I understand these things so easily in English, but I don't know how to translate them.

RSS aggregate and search

2006-12-10T21:17:00.002-05:00

Fredi Bach made a really cool RSS feed aggregator.

"Well, basically this is a feed aggregator. That means it takes the headlines from other sites, mostly blogs and archives them into a database to make them easily searchable even if the original feed was updated. Additionally to those “normal” features it shares with other good feed aggregators, jMe let's you select feed items and arrange them in a collection. This collection can than be posted to other websites, weblogs or message boards."

The tool includes some pretty advanced search techniques, and the collected feeds include posts on OS X, Web 2.0 & programming.

What an interesting way to collect and then find information!

Online Journalism

2006-12-10T21:17:00.001-05:00

The San Francisco Chronicle has handled the story of James Kim and his family on their Web site in a truly inspired fashion.

This article, from Thursday, is accompanied by a sidebar with links to all the related stories in the paper.

There is also a great implementation of Google Earth, a map of Siskiyou National Forest showing what happened and where clothing, Kati Kim and her daughters, and James Kim's body were found.

Digg, Dugg, Digger

2006-12-10T21:08:00.000-05:00

davenaff at Naffziger's Net put together a list of the sites most 'dugg' by the top 100 'diggers' at Digg.

The result was a list of 50 sites, along with a list of 'Patron Diggers', people who regularly read and submit from a site.

Top 10:

youtube.com, news.com.com, news.yahoo.com, nytimes.com, news.bbc.co.uk, today.reuters.com, thinkprogress.org, physorg.com, livescience.com, arstechnica.com

5 of those 10 are helped along by 'Patron Diggers.'

Mmm, computer-mediated journalism. Digglicious.

Video Killed the Radio Star

2006-12-09T10:52:00.000-05:00

and maybe print news?

For my semester project in Communications on the Internet, we were encouraged to make use of multimedia on our Web sites. Professor Carlson encouraged us to scour YouTube for relevant videos, provided that including them would not be an infringement of copyright.

Guess what? YouTube ain't the only thing out there.

Video Jug's upload system looks as easy as YouTube's, with superior quality. The site's focus is on creating "how to" videos, their tagline is "Life Explained On Film."

Toufee is an online video editor which turns your videos into flash presentations. You don't even have to know what flash is to get this running.

Spresent helps you create flash presentations right in your browser, using built-in or custom animation. They have a library of clip art and you can also use your own pictures.

Just more examples of how the Internet dissolves barriers to entrance into the worlds of professionals. These amateur-friendly sites may not produce the next great filmmaker or flash artist. Or they might. It just has to be "good enough," right?

And We're Back!

2006-12-08T13:06:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the absence folks, I had three finals on Tuesday and one on Wednesday, plus some projects to finish up before the end of the semester.

My Web site is now live!

Having business cards made has already turned out to be a great idea. I ran into a couple of people the other day who are in excellent positions to help me out in my attempts to get internships, clips, and general newsroom experience.

The last bit of required reading for classes struck me as an excellent post topic: The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism

It's a great read, full of applications of citizen journalism to traditional media frames. From allowing public comment on any article to incorporating citizen contributions to the newsroom as a wiki, Steve Outing's article advocates embracing citizen contributions instead of trying to fight them.

What do you think of citizen journalism? Will incorporating CJ make or break the newspaper industry?

Sorry

2006-11-29T12:09:00.000-05:00

I'm taking a few days off the blogging. Its the last week of the semester and school seems intent on trying to kill me, so I'll be fending off the demons for a few days. See ya after finals!

What are the feminist applications of CMC in Cyberspace?

2006-11-26T19:52:00.000-05:00

Lacking some of the cues that are received in face-to-face conversation, and the formality and permanence of traditional writing, CMC (computer-mediated communication) carries the potential to create a space without prejudice. Some claim that the Internet is a social utopia (Fredrick and Nguyen).

This study by Fredrick and Nguyen sought to describe the ethos of two groups that communicate asynchronously online. Given that a user cannot be identified by gender, race, or class on the Internet, it is conceivable that an Internet society that is democratic and inclusive can exist.

These researchers studied two feminist Usenet newsgroups, analyzing messages to determine the ethos, or rhetorical behavior of the groups. Based on feminist theory, an egalitarian group would be inclusive and democratic, with free access to communicate without a reduction in status.

They discovered that this potential utopia does not yet exist.

Where questions appeared in the messages, they decided whether the question was sarcastic or meant to open up discussion. The sarcastic questions would be noninclusive, and thus detract from th ethos of the group, and the others were inclusive, and would promote democratic discussion of a topic.

In examples of disagreement, the researchers divided those which were argumentative and accusing from those which acknowledge another point of view and offered alternatives. Although they looked for examples of agreement and support, these were rare, and often changed through the thread into a noninclusive tone. There were also examples of both strong and attenuated assertions.

One of the groups studied was moderated, the other was not. In the unmoderated group, sexist comment appeared, in an ironic twist. Not only do these comments exclude, but they exclude women in particular, extremely offensive in a feminist group.

Krolokke approached the same idea using synchronous communication data. She observed CMC in groups that were geared toward race, gender and political topics.

Krolokke found examples of insulting speech as play, which she describes as pushing the barriers of appropriate language. Examples of gender play also appeared, where users switched back and forth between use of gendered language. Even though participants cannot see or hear each other, it is possible to attribute a gender based on language use and behavior.

I believe that the idea that the Internet can create and egalitarian space is misdirected. The Internet alone is neither good nor bad. It is a tool, it is what its users make of it.

Instead of being a potential land of milk and honey, social interaction on the Internet reflects social interaction in real life. Prejudiced people will always find someone to exclude, and the anonymity of the Internet may only encourage that behavior, instead of creating a classless virtual reality. It might be enforced if a group of communicators is moderated, but it is not true equality.

The really interesting part of Krolokke's study was her discussion of the concept of IRC (Internet Relay Chat). According to theories of communication, this sort of conversation should be impossible. Turn-taking is based on how fast a user can type, redundancy occurs at times when someone types slower than another speaker, it is impossible to tell when someone is typing a message in response to another.

Yet it works. Users of IRC find the mode of communication meaning and entertaining, encouraging them to play with language and identity.

This is where the suggestion for further research comes in. What are the implications of an invisible society that reflects the physical one? What effects will CMC have on native languages? On speech or writing offline? How can a feminist and egalitarian society be created without destroying the democratic qualities? How do gender, race and class affect Internet interactions? If we can attribute these distinctions when all we have is text, can these lines ever be dissolved? What are the possible affects of online interaction in the real world? How can theories of communication be redesigned to include the phenomenon of IRC?

Chatation Nation

2006-11-25T17:02:00.000-05:00

I've spent the day working on a linguistics paper about how online chat breaks the conventions of linguistic theory.

Not only are spelling and grammatical conventions dashed to the pavement, but turn-based dialogue, politeness conventions, and standards are virtually (heh) non-existent.

This doesn't apply only to chat, but to any form of computer-mediated communication (CMC).

In a chat room, turns are based not on social convention but on how fast a participant can type something and hit "enter." This leads to redundancy when someone misses an important part of the conversation or was typing too slowly to match the speed of the other participants. Can you type as fast as you talk?

Online communication is currently dominated by those outside of academic fields. Regular, everyday Joes. Further, it is dominated by adolescents, who are often the first to pick up and play with new technology. Adolescent language is punctuated by constant change, in efforts to assert individuality and identity. Because they are the dominant users of online communication, standards for chat, e-mail etc. are practically non-existent. And no, you don't write an e-mail like it's a letter. Sorry, I'm just not gonna read that.

So what? These hanky-panky computer-using punks are going to ruin language conventions, and possibly even the language itself.

Let's not blame it on the kids. No one owns the Internet, and thus no one can impose standards. The medium is too new to have developed standards of communication. These take time, and we just haven't had any of it yet.

CMC is a new communication media unto itself. It's not writing. It's not speech. It's so new it doesn't even have a name.

Our languages are on a frontier. Conventional methods of communication just don't work online, where we have the options of including links and multimedia, and butchering grammar.

Whatcha gonna do about it?

Get the dog's name

2006-11-24T19:27:00.000-05:00

My Reporting instructor is constantly preaching the importance of details to a story. A general explanation is necessary of course, but it's the little details that make a good article into a good piece of writing.

And so he quotes, "Get the dog's name."

I recently got some business cards made (mostly for networking purposes, I'm lazy and I hate writing out 3 different ways to get in touch with me a few times a day) and I had "What is your dog's name?" printed on them.
Granted, few will get it, but a business card is of no use to anyone unless it is remembered, even as "that card with the weird question..."

It also reminds me to get the details along with the nitty gritty. Most of the articles I've written this semester weren't any good until I got a random detail.

* the name of the man who sorted bread at a food shelter
* a teacher's description of the perfect day
* the definition of "career flexibility"

These details added a depth to each story, a link between the subject and the reader, beyond simple transmission of information. This is the link that makes the reader keep on reading.

By the way, what IS your dog's name?

I feel...

2006-11-22T23:27:00.000-05:00

I'm working on an article for class, and my subject is Creative Commons licenses. I've done the basic research (creativecommons.org, flicker, etc.) and I've done several interviews, but if anyone has anything to toss into the ring, please do.

Although I'm focusing on CC license use in Gainesville, any comments would be appreciated. Why CC? Pros? Cons? Personal CC stories?

Gratzi.

How to Buy a Domain Name

2006-11-21T23:06:00.000-05:00

I've got a series of projects going on, one of which is to enhance my Internet presence. I've been thinking about buying a domain name and putting up my own Web site where I can post my resume, projects, clips, whatever, without worrying about losing it when I graduate or something silly like that. (My current Web space is hosted by the University of Florida)

So does anyone have any advice on how to go about this? I've looked at a couple of sites that sell domain names and also hosting plans, but I'm not sure what I really need or who is offering the best (or cheapest) services. All I'm looking to do is buy the domain name and a hosting plan, which sounded really easy until I did some research.

Adventure #78935

2006-11-21T20:27:00.000-05:00

::shakes fist at Microsoft::

Ever since I got my computer running again, Windows crashes every time I try to play a song or a video. Granted, I'm only really using this partition to run Dreamweaver, but coding without tunes? Not gonna happen.

So I get a hold of the motherboard cd, and reinstall the correct drivers. Aha! Now the music flows.

Pop-up window: "Since installing Windows, you've made serious changes to the hardware. Please re-activate Windows."

::shrug:: *Why does re-installing drivers make my Windows activation invalid?*

::click:: "This cd key has expired. Please enter a new key."

Huh? Come on now, I'm one of the few computer savvys I know who actually uses a legal version of Windows. And I'm punished for it because it took me a while to find a working driver?
This is ridiculous.

Tip o' the Day

2006-11-20T12:02:00.000-05:00

CSS: Until you launch, put borders around your divs so you can see where weird things are happening in browsers (cough, IE).

Please, sir, I want some more.

2006-11-19T18:32:00.000-05:00

Clicking randomly around the web isn't always a waste of time. Today I discovered the website for the synagogue my parents belong to in Miami.

I don't know who set it up, but it is quite literally just text on a page and some pictures in tables. It made me go "Squick."

So I called my father, who has over the last 3-4 years become really involved in the goings-on, and asked him to propose to the Board of Directors that I redesign the site. Although I used to work there, all of the people I knew have moved on; the proposal would be taken more seriously coming from my father than from some punk college kid 300 miles away.

Whether or not they offer me money, it'll be a great chance to play around with design ideas and add to my portfolio. I'm planning on trying to talk them into putting at least part of the monthly synagogue newsletter on the site as well. I'm pretty sure no one there has any real experience with maintaining a website, so I may have just created a long-term job for myself.

Make my little life worthwhile

2006-11-18T21:36:00.000-05:00

The assignment I'm currently struggling with is to write a magazine-style article and then edit it for the web.

I'm coding the website in Dreamweaver, and have the layout and design pretty much done after 20+ hours of coding. I didn't understand CSS at all until I tried using it in Dreamweaver. Now my only problem is getting it to work correctly in both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

The writing is more difficult. I understand the concept of "chunking," and writing for the Internet, but the assignment asks a little more: non-linear writing.

If a viewer can enter and exit a website at any point, how do I make sure that the point is made?
How can you tell a story without the "once upon a time....happily ever after" format?
Suggestions, anyone?

Saving Newspapers

2006-11-17T12:11:00.000-05:00

Last night, one of the topics discussed at the UF Newsies meeting was the future of journalism and newspapers. The obvious concern is that I'll have worked my butt off through college and not be able to get a job when I graduate.

So, what will save the newspaper business? The fogies will always prefer the printed page. But my generation has gotten used to the constant eye-fatigue that comes from reading long documents off a computer screen. We like the pretty pictures and moving images and click-y things. The ability to interact with an environment while sprawled in the comfort of my leather desk chair, where just the slight movement of my index finger can transport me...OK, personally, I miss books.

A new feature that the Newsies will have to accommodate to is multimedia. The editor is actually in my Communications for the Internet class, so she and I toss words like "package," "format," and "multi-media" over the heads of some of the others.

I have to write three articles over Winter Break, to have as stock at the beginning of the semester. These will be accompanied by photos, video and audio where applicable. I could even make a Google Map for one of them.

So the transition from print to Internet doesn't seem like a problem in terms of accommodating stories to a new medium. The problem appears to be in making money off of it. I'm a writer, an observer, a reporter, a dreamer. A business woman I'm not. But I might have to learn to be that, too.

What are you doing thats new and exciting? What ideas do you have for the business of journalism?

To Keep on Writing

2006-11-16T21:07:00.000-05:00

After this semester, I'll have finished most of the hardcore writing classes for my journalism major.
After this semester, I won't be writing on a weekly basis anymore.

As soon as those two thoughts slid through the grey matter between my ears, I panicked. I sat down in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the journalism building and tried not to think about the sleepless nights, the incessant butterflies, the paranoia (does that comma need to be there?!), and the feeling of supreme satisfaction at the churning sound of the printer spitting out a decent bit of wordsmithing.

And so I made a decision. I joined the UF Newsies. It appears that it was a decision well-made. The small group produces campus-oriented articles, and as of January will be hooking up with the Gainesville Sun, where I'll get to implement my newly hard-earned AP Style while maintaining my own voice.

After this semester, the writing don't stop.

P.S. I swear the A-grafs were unintentional.

News Junky

2006-11-15T22:01:00.000-05:00

I get my news through RSS feeds. Sometimes it feels like its an IV; I get something like 200 messages a day. A lot of them I can just skim through or read the headlines on. But keeping up still takes up quite a chunk of my day. Sometimes I have to mark an interesting post for a time when I can devote my full attention to its contents.

I subscribe to news, linguistics, journalism, technology, Internet and other blogs, websites, and online news portals. All in the attempt to make sure that I know what is going on in the various arenas that capture my interest.

As a journalist, I have to pay attention to what is going on in the world. As a "net girl" I also pay attention to innovations in technology and online.

You know what? Some days, it's too much to absorb. Some days, it makes my brain hurt.

I feel kinda silly asking this, since I don't think anyone reads this blog yet:
What do you consider to be the most important sources of information? For whatever interests you, where do you go to keep up? How, oh how, do you handle the insanity?!

Mama D

2006-11-14T23:18:00.000-05:00

By Megan Taylor

Marya Delia Javier, a.k.a. "Mama D" fed the homeless of Skid Row and Hollywood, Cali. for 20 years. Every Sunday she rose early to prepare 500 servings of vegetarian stew. She paid for the food from her disability check, and had a few friends who helped her shop for food, transport the humongous pots and feed the hundreds of homeless in downtown L.A.

She died of cancer on November 10, 2005.

Coordinated with Gainesville's Hunger and Homelessness Awareness week, the documentary "Living like Mama D" played last night in the Grand Ballroom of the Reitz Student Union. About 200 students and citizens sat in awe as Mama D described her experiences with the homeless.

"Nothing I do can compare with what she did," said Angie Schwartz, a First Year Florida (FYF) student. Freshmen taking the FYF class were required to attend the lecture.

Mama D grew up in an affluent family in the Philippines.
"In my country, either you have money or you are like a peasant," she says in the documentary produced by Craig Coogan in 2001.

When she moved to America, she worked in the art department of films such as "Valley Girl" and "National Lampoon's The Joy of Sex." Her first encounter with homelessness was when she had to work on a film in downtown L.A. She began to make friends with some of them, getting them to help her with props.
"I wanted to do something, but I didn't know where to start," she said.
Thus began her Sunday lunches.

Gordon Tremaine, past president of the Alachua County Coalition for the Homeless & Hungry, opened the event by telling students what they could do to make a difference.
"First, don't walk across the street when you see a homeless person. The one thing they all tell me is 'I just need people to look me in the eye and treat me like a person.'"

He went on to illustrate the concept of legacy, the story a person leaves behind when they die, by telling the story of Teddy Moore.
Teddy was a problem student, "the kind every teacher cringes to see on her class list," Tremaine said.
One year, he was assigned to Mrs. Tyler. As teachers before her had, she found Teddy annoying, ignorant, "and he smelled bad to boot." She ignored him as the others had, until he brought her a rhinestone bracelet with a few stones missing and a bottle of cheap perfume as a Christmas gift.
"You smell like my mom," he said. His mother had passed away when he was in the fourth grade.
She decided to begin teaching him after school, and by the end of the year, he had caught up to his classmates. She received a few letters from him over the years: when he was valedictorian at his high school, when he graduated from college and finally when he invited her to his wedding.
"I would like you to sit where my mother would have," he wrote. "You are the woman who has made a difference in me."
"That," Tremaine concluded, "is a legacy."

Patti Ramey, an advocate of community service, spoke next. She demonstrated the scale of human kindness by asking for six volunteers from the audience.

Each volunteer read a story exemplifying a point on the range of human behavior from a card given to them by Ramey. The first volunteer read the story of a homeless man being beaten to death while others watched and did nothing. The last told the story of Mama D.

"Kindness is a simple gift that doesn't cost a single thing," Ramey said.

She encouraged the audience to find a cause and be a leader for it, using the term "servant leader." A servant leader is someone who listens and empathizes with people and then works toward a solution.

There are 3.5 million homeless people in America. Children make up 1.3 million of these, and 42 percent of them are under the age of five.

Ramey's single mother raised two children, sometimes telling them, "I ate at work," so that they could eat. When her mother remarried, her stepfather took her to feed the homeless on Christmas; her mother, a nurse, had to work.

In grad school Ramey worked at the Harvest Hope Food Bank in South Carolina. There she met her "best friend ever."

Harlan Cobb sorted the moldy bread from the fresh. When he died in his sleep, Ramey panicked.
"I didn't know how to sort the bread," she said.

Ramey travels to universities across the country, encouraging students to take part in service programs and telling Mama D's story.

"I want Mama D to live in everyone."

Applied Fact Finding

2006-11-13T20:42:00.000-05:00

Today was a good one for actually showing up to class.

Paisley Dodds, the Associated Press London bureau chief, spoke to the class about her experience breaking the abuse cases at Guantanamo. Some points she made:

tenacity is one of the most important qualities a journalist can have
Freedom of Information Act requests are a strategy, not a starting place

While FOIA requests can get you access to information, if you start your investigation by submitting it, the entity then has time to spin their response in a favorable light.

the military is not fun to try to get information from
verify, verify, verify
make sure you have the backing and resources of your corporation/editor before you get in over your head

Following this, Dr. Armstrong took public records out of their boring, manila folder context. She showed us a few different ways they can add to a story or be manipulated for a story.

San Antonio city council web surfing during meetings
tornado sirens
find out about a city you might want to live in

Finally, she reviewed some steps that lead to good investigative reporting and writing.

Conception: pay attention and come up with an idea
Do-ability: do you have the resources to do it?
Base-building: preliminary research
Planning: who is involved and how will information be collected?
Original Research: track down them records!
Evaluation: have? need?
Filling the Gaps: answer leftover questions
Final Evaluation: Ethics

Others'

2006-11-12T19:34:00.000-05:00

Some interesting websites I played with over the weekend:

electiononline - last week's election coverage

Alexaholic - compare web site traffic

FedSpending - database of federal spending

An Adventure!

2006-11-10T22:41:00.000-05:00

I mentioned that the hard drive in my desktop computer had died. For two weeks I ran it off the Ubuntu Live CD while I waiting for a new hard drive to come in. I gasped in awe of the 250 GB I got for $75. Yay, Newegg.
So today, the hard drive came in. While I was putzing around, I played with my laptop for a bit, which has also not been working. Through a magical combination of random keys that I hit in frustration, the thing came to life. Since I don't remember what I did, I won't be restarting it for a while.
Then to the desktop. I realize I don't have the right power cord, call a friend, it's on it's way. Said friend takes over my feeble attempts to do things myself and soon, I have my computer back: a beautiful dual-boot of Ubuntu and Windows.
Le sigh. Glee.

From the Service Department of Honda Express

2006-11-09T21:27:00.000-05:00

They tell you hybrid cars give you mad gas mileage. Unless you're going on a long-distance drive, this is bullshit. The constant start-and-stop of city traffic prevents the battery from charging.
The government gives hybrid car owners tax incentives. Prior to December 31, 2005, this was a one-time $2,000 deduction. The new hybrid car tax credit allows a $400 to $3400 tax credit depending on model. A credit is much better than a deduction since a tax credit directly reduces taxes owed, as opposed to simply reducing taxable income. This credit is set to phase out once an automaker has sold 60,000 vehicles.
This sounds great, but best case scenario, the bill pretty much evens out:
The oil that's used in hybrid cars is almost 3 times as expensive as normal oil.
Hybrid tires are also more expensive, and wear down faster because of the extra weight of the car. The tires can't be rotated, so they don't last as long.
Up North, road salting leads to the erosion of battery cables.
To hybrid, or not? A few extra bucks may be worth reducing dependency on oil and easing up on pollution.

Just say NO to police searches

2006-11-08T23:19:00.000-05:00

By Megan Taylor

Just say NO to police searches, read the brochures.
On the screen, an officer jumps out of his car, donning Mountie-style hat and mirrored sunglasses. He slides a hefty baton into his belt and marches up to the car parked a few feet away, where a couple of teenagers are about to get arrested.
A question and answer session with a criminal defense attorney followed a viewing of BUSTED: The Citizen's Guide to Surviving Police Encounters at the Orange and Brew on the University of Florida campus Wednesday evening. Flex Your Rights, distributor of the video and corresponding brochures, provides educational material relevant to constitutional rights. Approximately 30 students gathered to find out how to deal with police encounters and protect their rights as citizens. The event was hosted by the Reitz Union Board and the Libertarian Activist Network (LAN) at UF.
Criminal defense attorney and UF graduate Toby Olvera spoke to the group after the screening and answered questions. He agreed with many of the points made in the video, but stated that the law is not always clear.
"There's a difference between what the police can do and what they will do," Olvera said. "Protecting your rights isn't going to be easy or get you off scot-free. But in about 90% of the cases I've worked on, mostly younger people involved in drug crimes, if people had just shut up they'd have walked away."
Olvera was a prosecutor before he "grew a conscience" and switched to defense. He currently works for Norris & Foreman, P.A., a law firm that specializes in personal injury and wrongful death cases. He welcomed students' questions, but hedged, "I can't help you with your personal situations; if you ask me about hypotheticals, I'll answer those questions."
Several students asked questions about or related experiences with DUIs, legal searches and drug crimes. Some were more skilled than others at phrasing their stories hypothetically.
He warned students about the importance of avoiding drug-related convictions, because they risk losing their financial aid.
"Don't fight" and "be quiet," was Olvera's advice for coping with cops.
The video reviewed three scenarios: being pulled over in a car, being stopped on the street and searching a home. Ira Glasser, narrator and former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), recommends tactics that protect these rights: don't resist, don't answer questions and don't consent to searches.
He emphasizes the importance of the Bill of Rights, specifying three amendments that citizens unwittingly give up during a conflict with police officers.
The Fourth Amendment protects a citizen's right against searches without probable cause. The Fifth Amendment states that no citizen can be forced to testify against himself or herself and the Sixth Amendment ensures that citizens have access to legal counsel.
"It's cheesy as hell," said Claudia Murray, secretary of the Libertarian Party of Alachua County, referring to the stereotypes in the video. "But it really shows how the cops try to get you to give up your rights and how you can protect yourself."The Libertarian Party of Alachua County often works with LAN at UF to educate students.
Murray warned students that although the video recommended stepping outside and closing the door to speak with police officers, "GPD [Gainesville Police Department] is not shy about peeking in when you open the door."
Chris Arias, 19, is a student at Santa Fe Community College. He was helping LAN at UF with the event, hoping to learn enough to start a similar group at SFCC. LAN at UF advocates personal freedoms and individual liberties.

The Election cliche

2006-11-07T20:35:00.000-05:00

To journalism majors at UF: Don't take Applied Fact Finding, Reporting, and Communication on the Internet all in the same semester.

That said, I'm gonna succumb to the all-too-powerful urge to post about today's election. For the above reasons, I didn't vote. Shame on me. But I did get hour by hour calls from my parents, who are working on a campaign in Miami, Fla. I wish now I had recorded their phone calls, add a little audio excitement to this otherwise trite excuse for a blog post.

Move along over to Slate for some election snark.

Newspaper News

2006-11-06T11:04:00.000-05:00

Well, this is one way to solve the newspaper/Internet/circulation problem:
The New York Times is offering free access to its TimesSelect online opinion section Nov. 6 to 12 through an advertising sponsorship deal with Philips electronics. Link

I'm not convinced. There are plenty of sites online where people can find the kind of thing they would see on TimesSelect. In fact, there are a lot of blogs that discuss the same topics.

The difference is the reliability and expertise that newspaper opinion pieces are supposed to have. This is a distinction that I think grows smaller all the time. Anyone can write anything, and while that include the phonies, it also includes the experts.

The Times and other newspapers need to find their niche online. Journalists need to stop pussyfooting around the White House. The watchdogs need some serious crossbreeding.

Along similar lines, Google may be the financial grace of companies like Gannett, the Tribune Company, The New York Times Company, the Washington Post Company and Hearst.

I love Google for all its Web2.0 terrificness. I ain't got no crystal ball, but I see Google gobbling up companies like YouTube and then providing a crutch to newspaper companies...
Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean Google isn't after you.

Hang the Bastard

2006-11-05T13:17:00.000-05:00

The news that Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to "hang by the neck until dead" brought a rousing chorus of "Hang the Bastard!" from Stone and Parker's Cannibal! The Musical to my lips.

Once I got over that however, I pondered the political implications of such a sentencing only two days before elections.

Veeeery interesting, say I.

Edit: Look who else is pondering: Dan Gillmor

A Place to Start

2006-11-04T11:30:00.000-05:00

I am a journalism and linguistics student at the University of Florida. As a part of my self-training for writing, blogging, technology and life, I'll be posting here at least once a day.

There is no theme here. Whether I write just to write, post about my classes, my adventures in technology (with a computer that currently runs only because of an Ubuntu Live CD, tech is always an adventure), random observations...I don't promise you anything, except maybe a starting point for thoughts of your own.