Development Blog

Remixing News – The future of online news development?

willgoldstone — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:58:21 +0000

In this fascinating article by Sean Blanda over at eMedia Vitals, he discusses the concept of a similar system for storage of online news content to the way Pandora handles music.

For those of you in the UK who may have missed Pandora due to its discontinuance in UK access, Pandora is part of the Music Genome project, a set of online tools that emphasize the social side of sharing and discovering new and related music. Pandora set a new standard for similarity engines and allows its users to enter things they already like, and be shown others they may like as a result, in a far more intelligent way than Amazon’s ‘other customers bought this’!

In the article Blanda touts a similar data structure as his proposal for how online news could well develop – as he points out, the two industries share similarities -

” As Paul Bradshaw and many others have pointed out, there is a natural synergy between music and news. Both are content-driven industries that are struggling to adapt to new forms of distribution.

But the similarities don’t end there.

Music is finally being recognized as an art that depends largely on social influences. We tend to listen to what our friends listen to, and it is one of the primary ways we discover new music.

News, however, has not caught up to music in this way. Links are passed around on Twitter, Facebook, in emails, and via instant messaging. Each time we pass along a link to a story or blog post, that data is not recorded in any way, forcing readers to start from scratch when they want to discover new stuff to read (or constantly go back to the same site). “

Take a look at the full article here

New Independent Design – More Web & Mag than paper?

willgoldstone — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:32:00 +0000

The Guardian have just posted some previews of the new look Independent newspaper, which curiously seems to be taking more of a web and magazine design than traditional newspaper.

The design, by Spanish agency Cases and Associates is touted to give a more ‘serious’ look, so say the guardian, but it is interesting to see in the link below that the front page seems more reminiscent of a website – with a large main column and accompanying sidebar, and the internal pages seeming to resemble contemporary magazine design such as that seen in Wired. Is it just me looking at it with a web designer’s eye? Look forward to your comments!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/gallery/2010/apr/20/the-independent-redesign-viewspaper?picture=361668749

Documentary Video now up

willgoldstone — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 11:40:51 +0000

Just added the short documentary film all about the development of buzz, as a page, see the link to the right or click – http://buzzdevelopment.wordpress.com/documentary-video/

Dan Hogan on Online Publishing & Buzz

willgoldstone — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:47:38 +0000

In this video interview for part of the Documentary film featured in this project, Head of BA Multimedia Journalism Dan Hogan talks about the issues faced by the Journalism Industry, and our challenges in making use of online publishing.

http://vimeo.com/11135602

Industry Perspectives – Online & Social Media

willgoldstone — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:56:28 +0000

As part of a documentary film I’ll be presenting to you shortly, here are some interesting extracts from interviews taken, in which industry figures were asked about online publishing, their approach and the impact of social media.

http://www.vimeo.com/11043758

Menu Redesign

willgoldstone — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:31:11 +0000

To accomodate forthcoming proposals to add new categorizations to Buzz, I’ve added a new menu system that will allow us to add sub categories that will appear as a drop down. Users of Vimeo.com will notice that I have taken inspiration (ie. ripped off) their style of menu for the new look Buzz menu. The proposal to add new categories are part of a research project i’m doing into increasing student usage of Buzz to practice journalism, the theory being that if posts are better organised, the site will be more enjoyable to both read and publish to.

This already comes in handy for learning resources, and as an added test I’ve added some Review categories to the site to show it off.

Journalism / Collaboration Improvements

willgoldstone — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:30:13 +0000

Hi all, just to give you a heads up, I’m looking at ways of better implementing collaboration on Buzz. I recently added the ability to publish with credit to multiple authors, but the next step in my mind is going to be setting up the site to work better journalistically. To this end I’ve been looking at some ways we can extend the functionality of the admin area, giving you the ability to submit work to be edited, check copy and also leave notes for others you might collaborate with.

Big thanks go to Einar Thorsen, whose excellent blog post outlines some really useful WordPress plugins (add on software for the content management system we use) that are good for journalism. Out of the list posted, I am looking at these which I think should help us out in working on Buzz in a more industry emulating manner – something to prepare you students for when you leave.

Peter’s Collaboration Emails

http://www.theblog.ca/wordpress-collaboration-emails

Peter’s Post Notes

http://www.theblog.ca/wordpress-post-notes

After the Deadline

http://www.afterthedeadline.com/

I’ll be working these 3 into some proposals I’ll make to the course team once I’ve had more time to research further into what can be improved on Buzz.

Password Retrieval Fixed!

willgoldstone — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:02:51 +0000

Hi all, just a quickie to let all of you third years submitting features assignments to buzz in the next few weeks that the password retrieval system is now fixed, and should send you an email to the registered address if anything goes wrong.

Sorry for the inconvenience for those of you who had to email me and get it changed manually, shouldn’t be an issue any longer, let me know if that changes of course!

Co – Author Posts

willgoldstone — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:29:58 +0000

As many of you have requested this feature, I’ve now found an effective way to add it into Buzz. Many of you have collaborated on articles and features on Buzz and have been posting two copies of your work, each with your own login. Now you no longer need do this to give credit to both authors.

Simply login as either of the collaborative authors and write your post. Once you have begun writing the post you can scroll to the bottom of the editing page where you will now find a ‘co-author’ section. Here you can start typing the name of your collaborator to find them, and then select them as a collaborator to add -

The New Co Author feature

Buzz Down Time

willgoldstone — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:50:15 +0000

Hi all , just a quick one to apologise for the recent down time on Buzz. The problem we’re having is being worked on by myself and IT services to narrow down why the server Buzz runs on keeps running out of memory and not responding when people try and use it.

We hope to stabilize Buzz as soon as possible and want to thank you all for your patience in the meantime! ^_^

UPDATE:

IT services have discovered we’ve been under attack from some nasty online gremlins called ‘bots’ which have been querying (requesting data from) Buzz’s homepage, and pulling off all the information via links it could find – as a result we’ve had to remove the list of authors as we believe this is likely one of the things these bots are taking data from, this seems to have stabilised Buzz for now, we’ll look at bringing back that author list in another form however, as I know some of you like it being available to show tutors your work, and the lecturers find it useful for assessment also. Thanks to Tom Teng, Mark Woods and Elliott Svatos in IT for help with keeping Buzz alive!

Development Have Your Say pt. I

willgoldstone — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:52:10 +0000

Hi everyone, I’ve sent you all a lovely survey to fill in, whether you’re staff member or student, I’d like to hear your views on redevelopment work I’ll be doing on Buzz. Please fill in the survey and if you don’t like my questioning or if you have more to say, write a comment here or post on the Facebook group for Buzz!

Student survey -

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/262885/buzz-phase-ii-students-

Students Review Buzz Rivals

willgoldstone — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:58:45 +0000

As part of this project, I asked first year students to engage with other student newspapers as part of their lesson. I asked them to find a paper they liked, one they disliked, and compare the two with Buzz. Here is my story on Buzz, which features links to some of the best stories that the students wrote -

http://buzz.bournemouth.ac.uk/?p=19173

WordPress Site Comparison

willgoldstone — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:29:55 +0000

As part of the continued research into ways to improve Buzz, I’ve made a short video critiquing some of the other student news sites out there that use WordPress – the software that Buzz is based upon. For first year BAMMJ students, we’ll be watching this video at the start of next week’s lesson with me and we’ll be looking further into student news sites then.

http://vimeo.com/11109902

Polls Feature

willgoldstone — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:05:28 +0000

Hi all, on request of Tom Hill and some of the students, I’ve just added a new Polls feature to the site. You can now add a poll with a number of answers to your question quickly and easily. There is a polls management area on the left when you login, this is where you’ll create polls, and once you’ve done this you can go and add your poll to any story you have in buzz using a button at the top of the editor.

I have made you a video tutorial explaining the process of adding them too, take a look! I recommend, switching to higher res video (click where it says ’320p’ to adjust) or viewing this fullscreen to get the best experience…

http://buzz.bournemouth.ac.uk/?p=15394

Convergence Links

willgoldstone — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:55:26 +0000

As part of a new series of changes that will take place on Buzz, we’re harnessing the power of some of the best Web 2.0 sites out there in order to help you get your media files onto buzz, and share them with each other as you work on your stories. To make these easily accessible I’ve created a ‘Convergence’ bar at the top of the buzz homepage.

Youtube

We now have a Youtube group which you can add your uploaded videos to. A youtube group is simply a list of videos on youtube that members of the group can post to. The idea here is that you’ll shoot and edit video, upload it to youtube and then tell your friend in the newsroom to grab your video from the group once you’ve added it.

http://www.youtube.com/group/bammjconvergence

Flickr

We have set up a flickr group for you so that you can post images into a single place and browse pictures that other students have uploaded easily. Once you’ve found the image you want, you can simply save it and take it over to buzz.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1348652@N23/

Twitter

Our twitter feed is now subscribed to by many local and national media organisations and members of the public, and we encourage you to use it to publicize your story once you have added it to buzz. See me or one of the other tutors for the login and password to use the Twitter account.

http://www.twitter.com/buzz_bmth

Buzz Critique 1

willgoldstone — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:01:58 +0000

To kick things off with working on Buzz, how we use it in the course, and how we can improve it from a technical standpoint, I’ve made a short video in which I critique the current state of the site.

To view on Vimeo.com please click here – http://www.vimeo.com/11042088