River sent me a link to this CNET piece about a “new kind of get together,” MashupCamp. While it’s a much larger get-together than what I envision doing regionally (at least at first), I really like the format, fast-and-furious pace of presenting new ideas, and on-the-fly method for generating plans for conference topics, presenters and room locations.
Helps to have a sponsor with lots of rooms to offer.
1 comment February 24th, 2006
Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis of Hypergene MediaBloghave an interview with the Christoperh Grotke and Lise LePage of iBrattleboro.com
3 comments February 24th, 2006
Jay over at the Hub Blog has an interesting new media take on Harvard President Larry Summer’s resignation. Turns out, word first came out via a blogger who had connections to one of the student newspapers. Says Jay:
How we get the news today: Wake up, make coffee, flick on computer, check emails, scan newspapers and blogs and see Instapundit has a post from late last night on rumors/reports of imminent resignation by Harvard’s Larry Summers. Follow Instapundit’s link to Cambridge Common which has lots of late-night rumors/reports about Summer’s probable resignation based on sources within The Crimson who say they’re doing a story on it for next morning (”apparently the Crimson is leaking like a sieve.”) Go to Crimson site: Sure enough, as Cambridge Common reported, the student newspaper has a story this morning on Larry’s possible resignation, based on a report in the WSJ, a story also mentioned and speculated about last night on Cambridge Common.
2 comments February 22nd, 2006
Last time we met, which was also the first, we tentatively scheduled the evening of Monday, Feb. 20 for another café planning meeting.
I would like to postpone this until after our first bowling for bloggers meetup on March 12. Besides the potential scheduling conflicts on Feb. 20 for a couple of people in our group, my sense is that it would be good to spend a little time getting to meet each other in person before much serious planning is underway. Discussion here is also a great thing.
If you’re interested in participating in planning, please post here what days of the week are best for you for an evening meeting in Holyoke. Also, it would be great if you could specify what you see as your area of specialty or interest, to prep us for the delegation of a few tasks. I will do my best to coordinate the skills. I appreciate everyone being upfront about their ability to commit time and energy so our planning can be realistic and scaled accordingly. Any ideas or suggestions on that would be appreciated too.
3 comments February 17th, 2006
Mark Jurkowitz of the Phoenix on recent staff walkouts at New York’s two alt.weeklies, the Village Voice and the New York Press:
It’s rare enough to have this kind of upheaval at two competing papers simultaneously, but the turmoil at the Press and the Voice reflects a similar uncertainty about their editorial missions. It’s a sure indicator that the alt-weekly business, despite its long-entrenched emphasis on politics, pop culture, and stylistic license, is struggling for relevance in an increasingly fragmented marketplace where there are now numerous rivals — including the blogosphere — to the alternative press.
I think there’s something here that resonates with what I’ve been thinking. The crisis going on here — I guess that’s what I’ve called it before — is constantly being framed in terms of markets and business models and not in terms of “editorial missions.” I think that’s creating a lot of uncertainty.
3 comments February 17th, 2006
Don’t know how many of you heard this story on a blogging program between a Holyoke middle school and a middle school in Athol. Interesting stuf.
Add comment February 16th, 2006
The date is set for the first Bowling for Bloggers night - Sunday, March 12th, 7pm at the Northampton Bowl. It’s right off of exit 18 from I-91, easy on and off. Mark your calendars and go blog about it. Everyone is invited. There’s a bar, bowling, possibly karaoke, and one of them coin-operated crane games.
Initially, it was set for March 5th, but then I remembered that is Oscar Night! No one would come. OK. I wouldn’t come. And I really want to join in the fun and the shoes. If this night isn’t good for everyone here, let me know and we’ll find another night.
4 comments February 15th, 2006
This piecein PJNet links to an article where Craig Newmark discusses his take on citizen journalism: “If you’ve read my blog lately, you’ll notice I’ve been emphasizing recently a balance and merging of professional and citizen journalism. The deal is, there’s no substitute for professional-level writing and fact-checking and editing. One of the tenets of the effort I’m involved with is to drive more traffic to professional news sites. People have gotten too excited about citizen journalism, and they’re not addressing the balance well. ”
although, from my experiences, I think Craig’s missing the point that most citizen journalism sites have oversight from journalists. Yes, people may be excited about it, but, a lot of the folks who are the msot excited are journalists. And as I know from my own experiences from climbing up the A-list ladder, you can shoot your mouth off for only so long before someone jumps in to give you a hand (and a clue). For me, it’s the guys at Corante (and some links from some bigshots).
The myth is that citizen journalism is happening without any mentoring or assistance. Even some of the best–like Lisa Williams–have their mentors.
4 comments February 15th, 2006
I was mentioning in a comment to an earlier post the website the Greenfield Optimist. There is also a similar type of website in Montague called MontagueMA.net. And in Brattleboro, there’s iBrattleboro. And now I see that MassLive has launched Local Stories: Northampton. These aren’t blogs, really, but community forums. MontagueMA.net likes to refer to itself as a corkboard. The Greenfield Optimist refers to itself as an online newspaper. iBrattleboro says it is a “locally-owned citizen journalism site.” And Local Stories is an effort from MassLive, which has both blogs and forums, to do something different. We’ve been talking mostly about blogs here, but what about these kinds of sites?
5 comments February 14th, 2006
From Dan Kennedy, himself a blogger (and professor and former media critic for the Boston Phoenix), there’s this profile of “citizen journalist” Lisa Williams of H20Town. I think Williams’ story is interesting. I live in a town (Greenfield) where there is an existing daily that soldiers on trying to do its traditional job. Williams lives in a bigger town, Watertown, where there is only one of the Herald’s sattelite community weeklies. I can see why she would be dissatisfied. Here’s a quote:
“I think there’s a fake, marketed genre of stories about how bad the media is,” she says. “And, in part, that created an appetite for stories about alternatives to the media. I enjoy newspapers. It’s a uniquely interesting profession. I definitely don’t want newspapers to go away. I want to play, too. I want to help. I want to do the kinds of things that newspapers have traditionally done to promote social cohesion.”
2 comments February 10th, 2006
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