Social Media Journalism

"One of the new competencies the news media is going to have manage is opinion arbitrage. In an era of media production devolved to the masses, everyone can finally express their opinion. So publishers will have to learn to, to put it crudely, buy opinion low and sell it high." - Jeff Guin from Bookmarklet

"In fact, much of the world is still a blank void on Google Maps, especially slums and lower income communities. The majority of Rio de Janeiro is remarkably well-mapped, and even includes public transit information. But if you live in a favela like Santa Marta (where Michael Jackson shot the video to "They Don't Care About Us") there is no street information at all:" - rowlikeagirl from Bookmarklet

Access to geographic information is crucial to the development of any community. As Mikel Maron, an evangelist of Open Street Maps, puts it: "Without basic knowledge of the geography and resources of [a community] it is impossible to have an informed discussion on how to improve the lives of residents." Last Saturday Fredy Rivera, a leading mapper of Open Street Maps based in Bogotá,... more... - rowlikeagirl

""Birther " was in the running, so was "death panels," but in the end the New Oxford American Dictionary can only pick one word of the year. For 2009, it's "unfriend," says the Oxford University Press. Or in New Oxfordspeak: "unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook. As in, 'I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.'"" - Jeff Guin from Bookmarklet

"For 19-year-old Rodney Bradford, a simple Facebook status update turned into much more: a rock-solid alibi after he was accused of a crime." - Bethany from Bookmarklet

"The bankrupt Tribune Company spends millions of dollars a year on its subscription to the Associated Press. Next week, it's going to test drive some less expensive services, like Reuters, Bloomberg and The New York Times. GERRY KERN: We're essentially doing some comparison shopping." - rowlikeagirl from Bookmarklet

"If you are a local publisher still reeling from Craigslist and the collapse of display advertising, grab your helmet. Google is coming to town. In recent months the search giant has released a dangerous trio of local services that newspapers and local publications should begin planning their counterattack (or their partnership agreements). Each new feature is a clever integration of an existing Google service localized to maximize advertising revenue. Make no mistake, Google is putting significant resources into going local, and you should be prepared." - rowlikeagirl from Bookmarklet

"Why spend money on expensive multimedia tools when you can use comparable alternatives for free? They may not be an exact replacement, but how can you argue with the price?" - rowlikeagirl from Bookmarklet

"Sexton's concern is that when people type "chicken noodle soup recipe" into Google, they don't necessarily care whose website they end up at. They just click on the top search results. "More and more, people don't care about brands," Sexton says. "It's an interesting challenge for companies based on brands. Do they resonate as well online when people have a thousand different choices for where to get a recipe? Even a venerable brand like Gourmet, unless they play the SEO game really well, the big name won't matter to the audience."" - rowlikeagirl from Bookmarklet

"At almost the very moment former publisher John Temple candidly told the Berkeley media-technology conference last week the reasons why the Rocky Mountain News succumbed, the Rocky Mountain Independent was drawing its final breath. The Independent was the second in a series of online news sites established by several Rocky veterans in the hopes of being able to continue doing the work they love in a place they would hate to leave. Ironically, the Independent failed for exactly the same reason the Rocky did: A suicidally stubborn determination on the part of the organizers to be in the business they wanted to be in, instead of attending to the business they needed to attend to." - rowlikeagirl from Bookmarklet

Only read the excerpt but have made a mental note to get back to it. Interesting. Could apply to a host of industries. - MASTER OF THE OBVIOUS

"Lists are going to change Twitter – dramatically – and it is largely up to how we use them. For most of us, I say lists are “for the better.”" - Kevin Sablan from Bookmarklet

How do you one comment interpreted differently by 5 different people? And what about all the echo chamber and remarks? - Kevin Sablan from Bookmarklet

"Twitter is planning to raise $100 million in its second round of funding this year, which would put the company's valuation at $1 billion, according to media reports citing sources familiar with the deal." - Bethany from Bookmarklet

"This paper outlines the most essential components to a successful social media marketing campaign. It provides great detail on these 12 essential areas of focus. While you may be very aware of social media and its marketing implications, what is less clear is how and where to get started. This report does an excellent job of abstracting out the main points of focus and goes into real detail as to how to define and implement an effective strategy." - Bethany from Bookmarklet

"These new memberships and clubs, which focus on offering services to readers that are largely different than a pay wall, are a byproduct of declining advertising revenues. As a result of that lost income, news organizations are looking at new ways of generating revenue from readers. The Washington Post has PostPoints, a reader rewards program that offers special benefits to subscribers and online readers. The Globe and Mail, a national newspaper in Canada, recently organized a special luxury cruise that put readers in close contact with some of the paper's top talent, all while cruising the Mediterranean." - rowlikeagirl from Bookmarklet

"West had launched a "meme", a viral joke that proliferates and mutates on the web." - Bethany from Bookmarklet

""Where do you live?" Facebook highlights territorial disputes, such as one between Israel and Syria over Golan Heights. Seems like a simple question, doesn't it? But the answer is not clear-cut for everyone. Take people who live in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, which is wedged between India, Pakistan and China. India and Pakistan have gone to war repeatedly over the disputed territory. Technically, it's "Indian-administered." But on Facebook, it's simply in India." - Bethany from Bookmarklet

"Two Massachusetts Institute of Technology students have developed a program they claim can accurately predict sexual orientation based on a person’s Facebook friends." - Bethany from Bookmarklet

"You know how every time a news report mentions Google, it's usually accompanied by the phrase "search-engine giant"? That's not entirely accurate. Yes, Google does search. But somewhere north of 95 percent of the money that company makes comes from search advertising. And today's news might only make Google more money. It's launching an online marketplace for display ads." - rowlikeagirl from Bookmarklet

"It’s Wednesday and the Daily Mail is still carrying a factually inaccurate story published the previous Sunday morning. And it’s not like they haven’t been told it’s inaccurate, comment after comment in the 279 thus far point out exactly why they are wrong. What’s interesting is exactly how come they are wrong." - rowlikeagirl from Bookmarklet

"Over the last seven years, Google has scanned millions of dusty tomes from deep in the stacks of the nation’s leading university libraries and turned them into searchable documents available anywhere in the world through its search box. And now Google Book Search, in partnership with On Demand Books, is letting readers turn those digital copies back into paper copies, individually printed by bookstores around the world. Or at least by those booksellers that have ordered its $100,000 Espresso Book Machine, which cranks out a 300 page gray-scale book with a color cover in about 4 minutes, at a cost to the bookstore of about $3 for materials. The machine prints the pages, binds them together perfectly, and then cuts the book to size and then dumps a book out, literally hot off the press, with a satisfying clunk. (The company says a machine can print about 60,000 books a year.)" - Jeff Guin from Bookmarklet

"CitySourced provides a free, simple, and intuitive tool empowering citizens to identify civil issue" - Kevin Sablan from Bookmarklet