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There’s a great thread on Wired Journalists about how news organizations are using Twitter.

Are you following AEJMC on Twitter?

Source: Read/Write Web

Now more reason to get one:

- Embedded Safari previews of posts
- Full support for tags & categories
- Photo support for both camera phone pics and library photos
- Support for multiple blogs
- Ability to password protect a post, save as draft, or mark for later review
- Auto-recovery feature recovers posts interrupted by phone calls

Check out WordPress on iPhone screenshots here.

Source: LostRemote

Google announced that they are opening Knol (short for Knowledge). The Wikipedia like site allows users to create articles about anything. The twist is, they allow the author of the article to manage the updates. That means various articles on the same topic but a different perspective. Some bloggers are saying that Knol is a direct challenge to media companies. Danny over at Journalistopia has a good summary of bloggers thoughts on Knol.

NYTimes.com is set to launch a new blog focused on showing the public a variety of “hard-to-get” public records, including confessions, wills, ancient city records and the like.

NBC and Lorne Michaels have a novel plan to launch the next version of Late Night with new host Jimmy Fallon: online. The show will start online five to six months before debuting in its 12:35am slot on NBC.

Media General’s station in Raleigh has launched new hyperlocal site called MyNC.com. It combines aggregation with user-generated content organized around North Carolina communities. They’ve tapped liasons in the community to help get the word out and foster more content submissions.

WTSP in Tampa is soliciting 20 people to work as citizen journalist photographers for the station. They’ll receive training, get a handheld video camera and be required to send in ten clips a quarter. For each clip that airs or makes it online, they get $20. And if they keep with the program all year long, they get to keep the camera.

AllVoices.com bills itself as “the first open media site where anyone can report from anywhere.” You can send in reports via voice, email, SMS or MMS, and it’s pinpointed on a large map on the home page. The site also aggregates mainstream news from across the world.

Courtesy of the Religion and Media blog. There is a free media and religion workshop in Tehran. Deadline for Application is August 1st, 2008.

Objectives

• To develop a resource and knowledge base for young intellectuals, community leaders, journalists and other media activists
• To offer Fellowships to young scholars in research work in order to develop both their understanding about socio-cultural and political situation in the Middle East and the links between religion, media, globalization, and modernity.
• To foster interreligious dialogue and empower young leaders and activists with the leadership skills required to advance reconciliation and coexistence.

Social Media Group and Livingston Communications announced they have signed a letter of intent to create the world’s largest independent social media marketing and communications firm. The acquisition of Livingston Communications will be completed in August, 2008.

Acquiring Livingston Communications will grow Social Media Group’s staff to 20, and round out an already significant client portfolio with more technology and nonprofit social media clientele. Including Livingston Communications, Social Media Group will now have operations in Toronto, Calgary and Washington, DC creating a significant North American footprint.

“I am absolutely thrilled that Geoff Livingston and his team will be joining SMG. Geoff is one of the industry’s most highly respected thought leaders. Adding his social PR practice to our already comprehensive services creates a social media offering capable of serving any Global 2000 company, rivaling every traditional communications agency or consulting firm’s ’social media practice’,” said Maggie Fox, CEO of Social Media Group. “Together our combined assets position our company as the largest independent and most experienced social media firm globally.” (more…)

From Gemma Puglisi, Assistant Professor
School of Communication, American University

There were many words written by friends and colleagues about the life of Tim Russert, the extraordinary Moderator of “Meet the Press” who died on June l3th.  I would like to join that list.

I too, knew Tim, but many years ago while he was a Vice-President of News at NBC in New York.

Tim’s death has such incredible significance and here’s why.  Yes, we will mourn a man who really stood for the “everyday” person.  Tim was really our conscious, honestly at a time in our world, where we see greed, selfishness, and injustice.  But Tim’s death sends another message.  As a professor of communications, we look at our field and how it is changing.  More and more people criticize the media today than ever before.  That’s sad because the media as Tim showed, really stand for truth and “honor.”  Tim represented hundreds of men and women who devout their lives to working hard and getting stories out that affect each of us every day.  As professors, we try to instill this in our students.

When I asked my students where they go to get their news today, the majority say it’s the internet.  We are now a society that relies on our information via the computer.  This is quite a departure from the years I spent in a network newsroom twenty years ago and when the majority of the world got their news from the networks. (more…)

Source: TECH.Blorge

There are proposals for a new super-database which would log every single phone call, SMS text message, and email sent in the UK. The database means that internet service providers and telecoms companies would have to hand over records of every communication sent and received.

Records of phone calls and texts are already kept for up to 12 months in order to comply with European Union anti-terrorism directives. But the new proposals - which are still at the discussion stage between the Home Office and the industries who would be charged with keeping, and then handing over the records - go even further than that.

…Internet use would also be subject to scrutiny, with all emails, websites visited, and VoIP calls stored alongside texts and phone calls. These would all then be stored in what is being described as a super-database for 12 months, which the police, and other authorities could then access via permission from the courts.

Say what you will about The Dark Knight being over-hyped, but don’t discount 42 Entertainment, the company behind the viral marketing campaign.

As the scavenger hunts, free screenings, poisoned cakes and mystery phone calls come to an end, a bigger picture has been painted bridging the narrative gap between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

The B&U spent some time combing through message boards, wikis and old viral stuff we had lying around to form a summary of the relevant plot points that bring us to where we are when The Dark Knight opens.

Warner Bros. Pictures’ The Dark Knight has earned $155.34 million to top Spider-Man 3 for best opening weekend at the box office.