(image from Flickr, by premiardiego)
Can you ever be too Web 2.0? I’m starting to think so.
Zac Echola posts this brilliant list of tools for streamlining reporting in the modern newsroom. I say ‘brilliant’ with a hint of unease, however, as the list is as long as your arm — and then some.
I worry that with all these great tools, we’re going to get wrapped up in user accounts, feeds and social media. While some of these methods make reporting easier, more efficient and, you’d hope, better, we’re hurtling towards Web 2.0 meltdown.
So, I’d like to streamline the streamlining list into some essentials. For the sake of clarity, I’m going to write why I decided to ditch the other ones too. Of course, feel free to disagree. I change my Web 2.0 allegiences more often than I change my socks (so that’s alot… you cheeky buggers).
Here we go:
Firefox – YES
I agree. Firefox is far quicker, and can be customised beyond belief. It’s not just about saving time, it’s about putting all the tools that I’m about to write about in easy reach. I didn’t know about the portable version which Zac mentions, but it seems a good idea for all of us who are blocked from installing anything by frightened IT technicians.
ADrive – NO
I’ve had a look around, and this seems clunky and unreliable. If you’re a professional outfit, you’re far wiser to use Zac’s second suggestion: A private FTP server.
del.icio.us – YES YES YES!
I first saw del.icio.us in full swing when I observed Martin Stabe at work. His use of the social-bookmarking super-tool was to collect links that might be of interest to other people, and then to privately save links that are of use to him. I’d urge every journalist to do this. I hate how MSM sites don’t bother to actively acknowledge other MSM sites exist. You should, as a provider of news, send your readers to wherever is important. The best bloggers are the ones that are trusted by their readers to steer them in the right direction — even if it means sending them to a ‘rival’. (Sidenote: Do bloggers have rivals?)
Google Reader – YES!
If it wasn’t for Google Reader, I wouldn’t have learned about Zac’s post. It was recommended by Ryan Sholin — his favourite bits of Web-ness end up in my feeds too.
Google Reader is a terrific bit of kit. ‘Nuff said. Tie it in with the mobile version, the ‘badges’ and the shared item functionality and it’s undoubtedly one of the best tools on this list.
Gmail – Suppose so…
It won’t change your life… but if you’re not happy with your web email client, then Gmail is the best solution by miles. Although, I have to disagree with Zac on the usefulness of the IM feature. No-one pays any attention to it… at least not in my experience. Far better to Twitter them…
Google Docs – NO
It’s handy for quick edits, but I wouldn’t recommend it for much more. Certainly not, as Zac suggests, a cheap alternative to front-end word processing. If you want a free alternative to MonopolySoft’s Office suite, then try OpenOffice instead.
Why the hostility? Well… try opening a formatted document in Google Docs. It’s all over the place. Try copying text from Google Docs into a web-based form, and breaks will litter the page. You’ll need to painstakingly go through each line. Grrr.
Zac notes you can publish directly to blogging software and similar bits and bobs… but is it really that difficult to log into Wordpress? Nah.
Google Calendar – NO (sadly)
You know… calendars are great. I have a good one on my wall. Except it’s from 2003 and stuck on September. I also set up Google Calendar for my student newspaper team — except we didn’t update it. Are we lazy? No. Are we technically backwards? Of course not, you cheeky swine! What we are (were… *sigh*….) is busy journalists who keep on top of their appointments by using personal diaries, and phone-based calendars that vibrate and beep at me if I’m missing anything.
In an ideal world, everyone would use a Google Calendar to organise their time. Diary stories would be placed on there, assigned to different reporters, timed to perfection. But that’s not how a newsroom operates — thank God! They’re manic places, where stories and appointments change at the drop of a twitter. A Google Calendar doesn’t reflect that — so we don’t need it.
The most effective way to manage reporters is that big scribbly whiteboard in the corner.
Grand Central – Oh.. go on then!
I’ve never used or even heard of this before, but it looks good. Especially the WebCall function… unless you get prankers. Which you probably will.
“Do you like scary movies?”
Arrrgggh!
Flickr – YEAHHH!
I love Flickr. Give it time, I reckon Flickr users will have photographed the entire world. Well, the bits we inhabit, anyway. Most useful are the mobile-to-web tools. Imagine a world where your online reporters can post pictures and video to your news site within seconds of it happening? Imagine no more… go and get a Flickr account.
LinkedIn – NO
If you’re more worried about embracing social-networking and the ‘real’ people that use them, you’re far better off getting a Facebook and MySpace account. Facebook for sure.
If you need contacts, you can get them. Don’t waste your time signing up to too much.
Jott – NO
I’m always against technology that makes the user look like a bit of a maniac. Too busy to post to your blog? You’re likely to be in a busy situation then. Imagine whipping out your phone and talking your posts down it. You’ll sound insane, like those blokes who use handfree kits around the supermarket. Show offs.
Remember the Milk – NO
Aside from the fact the cheesy name of it makes me feel like being sick (cheesy… milk… geddit? Ho ho!), Remember the Milk seems like another pointless organisation tool. “Editors can see what you’re working on, while assigning quick tasks and deadlines,” says Zac. Just phone them, says I. It’s amazing how more productive an actual conversation can be.
Twitter/Brightkite – Oooohhh YES!
I love Twitter. I’ve never heard of Brightkite, but Twitter is just fantastic. When it’s working, that is, which at present is a bit haphazard. The thing I love about Twitter is that posting to it is simple — a nice, free text — and it’s versatility knows no bounds. My latest Twitter message appears on the sidebar of this blog. When I was at Sky, Julia Reid used Twitter to great effect, reporting from an aeroplane grounded at the shiny but shit Terminal 5.
Ning – NO
New to this, too, but it’s not needed. Firstly, the general public aren’t using Ning. So, for that reason alone, it’s of limited use to journalists. Want to build a community of your readers? You’ve already got one in Facebook and MySpace. Want to reach people who don’t use social media? Then your own website should be massaging discussion.
As for the second reason, the art of conversation is the best tool for newsroom communication. You don’t need Ning, and your readers don’t either.
Any good blogging platform – YES
Well this is a no-brainer, really. If you don’t have a good, versatile blogging platform then you’re pretty much stuffed. So get one. I suggest Wordpress.
***
So there we go. I sense I’m being very dismissive of some of the tools there, so please, get some comments over this way and I’ll happily debate with you until the cows come home.
To sum up, in the ‘yes’ pile:
Firefox
Del.icio.us
Google Reader
Flickr
Twitter
Blog software
In the ‘no’ pile:
ADrive
Google Docs
Google Calendar
LinkedIn
Jott
Remember the Milk
Ning
And in the ‘maybe’:
Grand Central
Gmail
The jury’s out!
While not essential, I would strongly recommend LinkedIn. It’s a very simple way to maintain professional connections, show off your resume and recommendations. The time you put into is very small compared to the possible benefits.
You list our service, ADrive, as being “unreliable”. We would like to know what reliability issues you have had with our site.
Some of the stuff, like ADrive, are a “want to have,” rather than a “need to have.” (I do believe if you’re going to have a distributed newsroom, you need collaborative software of some sort).
The list is meant more to get people off the ground without their tech staffs. It’s meant to cut costs (some front end systems run in the hundreds of thousands per year and they hinder publishing to the Web, rather than help it).
Mostly the list was meant to get people thinking about how they can report without their desks.
I agree that the list is long, but I do believe news management should be at least AWARE of these tools (and more out there). They should know the right brushes for the right canvasses.
The second post which will go up in the next week or so, will talk specifically about the work flow of news in a distributed news room (this is where the collab tools like gdocs and ning would be necessary).
While the list is long, I think it’s important for journalists to know the tools are out there.
My biggest quibble with your revision is your take on Ning.
Facebook and MySpace are fine for digging up sources, but if your goal is to harness the sources you find and get them talking to each other, Ning is a great and simple and free tool for getting that job done.
I agree with Dave here on the use of Ning. It may be free and quick to set up, but it’s got a significant barrier to entry — namely it’s another separate signup and another separate “walled garden” to keep up.
Journalists aren’t the only ones with busy schedules and an overwhelming amount of stuff coming at them on the Web. What kind of sources want to sign up, then will remember to return often enough and make the effort to engage in discussion for your benefit? I just don’t see that happening. Or at least, very very rarely.
It seems it’s better to reach people where they are thant make them come to you and use a site nearly everyone will have never seen before. Right?
@ ADrive… I’ll retract that slightly to say that very rarely do you find web-based uploaders that can handle large files. The reliability of a Java-based uploader is an issue with all storage sites — not just ADrive. Zac had the same concern in his original post.
@ Zac… I’m looking forward to your second post. When I read your list I did look at it and think ‘bloody hell! That’s too much… when do you start reporting?!’, but when put in the terms of your comment, it makes more sense.
@ Kevin… spot on! Reporters should treat Facebook and MySpace like the local pub. The amount of stories out there cannot be underestimated.
Hi Dave,
Here at hotwire we set up social media press offices for our clients (the darkside of the newsroom). The sites and service slisted in ‘yes’ pile are exactly the tools we use for these sites.
The only additions i would have would be Google Analytics and Feedburner – essential for measurment, but I guess that’s less important for a newsroom rather than a press office.
Your take on Ning got me thinking about it a bit more. I think what works well about it is the way its own brand disappears (somewhat). While they do all look very similar, and there is that walled-garden aspect, the sites built on them remain very much their own sites.
I’ve had a handful of friends point me to sites built in Ning and say, “Hey, check this site out.” Very rarely do they notice what it’s built with, or care.
Ning is a tool, useful for creating a quick, focused group, something of a super-BBS. It doesn’t really need to be much more than that.
It sounds interesting as much as I read , but if anyone could translate this to Italian, it would be so good for me to get the idea better. I hope to come back and check this out again.