This year I attended the Online News Association conference for the first time; I was part of a big group of first-timers at the event. While other conferences saw fewer attendees this year, ONA said it sold out, with more than 800 taking part in the D.C. event.
I knew this would be a great opportunity to scope out the current state of the online journalism industry, and hopefully see what to expect in the year to come. So, I set out to find 10 news innovations. I found a lot of these products, Web sites and ideas from journalism educators and journalists who had started their own companies, two other popular groups of attendees.
Cell Phone projector: It's a cell phone with a built-in projector system and keyboard. You use a special pen to interact with the projected image. This device could accelerate the use of mobile devices -- enabling people to use their phone instead of their computer.
Barb Iverson (@drbarb), E-Media Tidbits contributor and Columbia College of Chicago professor, shared this during the J-School Entrepreneurship Bootcamp.
Foneshow: This free service allows news organizations to send audio content directly to users' cell phones -- bypassing the Internet or the need for a smart phone. Users enter a cell phone number, then receive a text message with a number to call for hearing the audio report, similar to a voice message. News organizations using this service include
The Boston Globe, BBC, NPR, and a handful of local and regional radio and television broadcast stations.
Foneshow presented at ONA07 and presented at the ONA08 session, "Mobile Platforms."
12seconds.tv: It's like Twitter for video. Only, instead of 140 characters you have just 12 seconds to record your video message using your webcam or phone. The site is still in private alpha, but you can request a log in to upload your own video bits. Also, the team developing 12seconds.tv is taking user suggestions for site enhancements and allowing the audience to vote on which suggested enhancements they like best. Below is an example of how journalists could use 12seconds.tv. Watch
Amy Wood, Interactive Anchor for WSPA -News Channel 7 in Spartanburg, S.C., use this social network to connect with the audience online.
Publish2: This site is designed for newsrooms and allows journalists to share links, clips and reporting resources. I had been aware of Publish2 before ONA, but what I learned at the conference is that it recently went through a major overhaul with additional functionality (soon to include more integration with other online networks). The goal of Publish2 is to create a "Web-based newswire" through collaborating and practicing
"link journalism" -- linking to sources to enhance online content.
Via @joshkorr and @scottkarp.
Sekai Camera: I only saw a YouTube demo of this, as it is not yet available in the United States. Basically the phone uses an "airfilter" that eliminates searching and allows you to watch information come to you. View the video below to see it in action.
Via @drbarb.
Friendfeed: Are you (or your news organization) on one too many social networking sites? Friendfeed is a great way to keep track of what's going on in your virtual network without having to log in to each site individually. The site aggregates the online network activity of you and your friends from more than 40 sites. Create a room to gather the activities of many people. See Poynter's friendfeed widget below:
Newsgarden: Mark Briggs (@markbriggs), author of Journalism 2.0 and Assistant Managing Editor at
The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.) shared with me the hyperlocal news project he's working on in Washington. The site shows news powered by reader-submitted stories, links, events or images displayed on a Google Map. Users can search for the most recent or popular news, or see news based on neighborhood or a category, like "Schools and Family."
Cumul.us: This is a social network based on weather predictions. Each user who attempts to forecast the temperature and weather for the day receives a user rating based on its accuracy. Cumul.us uses APIs from weather information sites like AccuWeather and the Weather Channel for the site's verified weather information. With some help from Flickr, users can share pictures of their clothing choice for the day. Users can also answer the question "What are you wearing today?" through selecting checkboxes. Based on their response, cumul.us offers clothing suggestions using a widget from ShopStyle (the site says it does this solely for the sake of the user experience, they don't receive money or affiliate fees). V
ia my former Poynter colleague Phil Zepeda.
Wind-powered tiki torches: This one isn't a news innovation, but I found it when Dave Poulson, from the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, was taking us on a tour of the
Great Lakes wiki he has created with his students at Michigan State. The Great Lakes wiki is teaching student journalists about the journalistic possibilities of a wiki. And these wind-powered tiki torches represent an entrepreneurial approach to thinking about a common, established product.
One other note: The unofficial theme for the weekend was "ambient awareness." Newsgarden's Briggs came up to me at the opening reception and asked "Hey, how was the Rays game last night?" because he had seen one of my Twitter updates on Facebook. Throughout the conference one way to introduce yourself to someone was, "I think I follow you (on Twitter)." The conference was a great opportunity to see how the real world and the virtual world can work in tandem. This is especially evident through the page ONA has created to aggregate virtual content about the conference with feeds from many blogs, Flickr, Twitter and more.
What are other news innovations would you add to this list?
Thanks for noticing what I am doing Ellyn. Having so...
