citizen journalism

Curation duration

All the rage in fashion this winter? Curation*. Tool after tool after tool. Splices of networks, filters by geography, interest, type of media or time of day. I turned on a self-publicizing service called Paper.li not too long ago. There are readers, there is sharing, but there are few ‘subscribers’ so in my eyes they must be missing a few things.

Here’s a sample publication I put together for Themeefy (bummer they probably have to pronounce that correctly for people). It was quite a bit of work figuring out how to ‘simply’ put it together.

http://www.themeefy.com/miniature?tid=47205

For some people, curation is what they hear in the hallway at school or work. For some, it’s Twitter from 7:00 to 7:10 am. For some, we rely on Facebook or other destination sites to use their own algorithms to determine what’s ‘important’ for us. They use things like ‘most shared’, ‘most discussed’ and ‘most liked’. Often what’s most discussed is not what is most important or interesting to me, however, or even you, so that fails in a lot of ways too.

How much time are we spending curating each day? Doesn’t this defeat the purpose?

* Why do I have to add the word “curation” to every dictionary in every program I have? Certainly curation has been a word used in other industries for many years.

Lisacast.com Daily on Paper.li – Try paper.li

Lisacast.com Daily http://ht.ly/5yjNn thank you @CNN @pitchforkmedia @exponentialedge @zeldman

Social Circulation

How To Create a Webzine by Compiling Your Twitter and Facebook Worlds

This is an excellent way. This site is really intuitive, very easy. You can pick a few keywords or tags and publish the content each day (or twice a day, or weekly). Readers can view the information is a relatively well formatted zine style. Click on mine to check it out. If you subscribe, you’ll follow updates from me plus, all of the people I follow. Paper.li creates it for you automatically.

Focused Content

I put this together in less than 10 minutes and I’m sure you can do it too. I hadn’t seen the site before. My focus for this site was an experiment for  “new energy”, and related aspects: like “#windpower”. If you view it, you’ll notice, #windpower is now a menu item. Click through to read content tagged wind power. Easy to read, huh? This is a nice way to further open your social imprint.

This is an easy add on for any newspaper site, but it also serves the interests of a citizen journalist who simply want to tie Twitter and Facebook together in a nice tidy webzine. Webzines were popular in the 80′s  90′s. Well, the 80′s 90′s are back.

[*I am corrected by a loyal Twitter friend, webzines were really more in the 1990's.... and I agree. In 1994, I took a Basic programming class in high school, but the course was limited to programming principles. In retrospect this was probably a big reason I ended up in a profession marketing technology. A couple of years later I was learning Pascal from a local community college (making up for high school science credits). As proof of the web's embryonic state, the course was available via television but I thought that was pretty cool, and much preferred to sitting next to the distractions of being in class.

Last night on the news, I saw a piece on computer-based distance learning programs. They were highlighting a family home schooling their 3 children. I have also seen these programs, especially for math, being used in public and private schools. Teachers have to be excited about this, because it places some of the responsibility back on the student and parent where it should be. Parents must be excited because they have a window into what and how the student is really learning.]

Daphne Kwon, ExpoTV (Podcast and Interview Transcript)

Recorded from an earlier interview.

Please read my blog post as well.

You are listening to Lisacast on BlogTalkRadio.

Lisa Padilla: Hey good evening, it’s Lisa Padilla. I am Lisacast and I am back on BlogTalkRadio after a couple of weeks without doing a show truly; this is good news. With me today is Daphne Kwon who is the CEO and the co-founder of ExpoTV, and in a minute I will introduce her and we can get to a discussion with her. She is at the Dow Jones VentureWire Consumer Technology Conference today and I am sure she is going to tell us a little bit about that too; maybe she is doing some interesting things there. I have myself been to that conference and found it fascinating, interesting mix of technology companies and leading companies and large entertainment companies and all in all a pretty high caliber group of attendees and speakers and press and whatnot. Daphne has some experience in TV herself.

(Informal Talk)

Lisa Padilla: While I am doing that, I will tell you a little bit about her background. She was Chief Financial Officer of Oxygen Media which is very interesting in that she has done a lot of work with mergers and acquisitions and I think that combination of business experience as well as television industry experience is very interesting. Okay now I have got her back here. Daphne, are you with me?

Daphne Kwon: Yeah I can hear you.

Lisa Padilla: Great. Well thank you and welcome to BlogTalkRadio, we are excited to get to talk to you once more.

Daphne Kwon: Yeah it’s great to be here and currently I am so important that you pulled yourself out of a few weeks hiding just to come talk to me. So thanks for doing that.

Lisa Padilla: I did. You got me excited again about talking to people. We have been working so hard on our own site here, we launched a new homepage today also BlogTalkRadio has a couple of exciting announcements coming next week, and so I am ready to get talking again. You know let’s build and then talk about it. So tell me, your background Daphne nicely supports the work I am talking about that you have done with Oxygen Media and Disney and as you might want to tell I guess a little bit about ExpoTV. But then I would like to jump into sort of what you found most useful about your experience before this as applies to running ExpoTV which is a great site, I love your site.

Daphne Kwon: Thank you so much, thanks for saying that and congratulations on your own product development, I think that’s fantastic you are one of the entrepreneurs. I think that, and I appreciate your question actually about my background because it’s something that Expo is actually very proud of, are the type of people that we attracted to our company. Generally you know thumbnail of what we do is it’s a YouTube crossed with consumer reports. So basically we are very purpose driven on product information and what we say is we are dedicated to illuminating consumer experiences. So we have about 200,000 product video upload reviews that have been uploaded to us. So there are these 1 to 3 minute clips of people everyday Joes who are uploading video testimonials about products that they own and it can be positive or negative. And they are very authentic, very sincere because you have to show your face you know you create a profile page, you have to show the product, you have to demonstrate it. And these are products that these people spend money on so they have a very different prospective than an expert like a Di Fino and all of those perspectives they are really valid however we think someone who spent the money on it also has a really valid perspective.

Lisa Padilla: Right. Taking the time, has been inside the instruction booklet, went through the whole process of setting it up or testing it or what have you, right?

Daphne Kwon: And also saw how it sat on their kitchen counter you know that it was too big or that the keeper board was too little and their baby didn’t like that because the strap was in its way. And so there is lots of things that I think an expert misses because they are not using it on a day-to-day basis, they can only guess how someone might use it but they are not using it themselves and that’s a whole level that I think is only complementary to the experts that we go to for their advice as well. [Full articles]

Danny Glover, AirCongress (Podcast and Interview Transcript)

Transcribed from a previously recorded interview.

BlogTalkRadio

You are listening to Lisacast on BlogTalkRadio.

Hey welcome to the show the second one today. If you are a host on BlogTalkRadio, this is a new feature that not only can you do more than one show a day but also you can do longer shows. We have been responding to some future requests and we will continue to do so. It’s a big week for us. We just launched our revenue and sharing program for host which shares a piece of the advertising that runs on host profile and show pages. A big week for us and a big middle of the day for Lisacast. Today we have AirCongress gentleman Danny Glover is with us today. Danny, thanks for joining me.

Danny Glover: Thanks for having me on the show.

Lisa Padilla: And this is not your first time on BlogTalkRadio, right I didn’t bring you on first, right.

Danny Glover: No, I have actually been on Ed Morrissey’s show a couple of times, the most recent time was when we were talking about BlogTalkRadio’s partnership with AirCongress a few weeks ago.

Lisa Padilla: Okay very exciting for us and the BlogTalkRadio platform in general is very interesting to political talk-show hosts and listeners interested in that programing. As that as Ed Morrissey’s is well aware his sight Captain’s Quarters and headingright.com we also do headingleft.com and if you look under political categories on our website you will see hundreds of shows there on politics so these things seem to go together pretty well. So Danny, why don’t you tell us a little bit about the background of AirCongress and then with the present day state of poling and voting nomination, candidate races and so on and then we will ask you a couple of other questions.

Danny Glover: Okay sure. Well AirCongress is kind of an outgrowth of another blog that I started a few years ago called Beltway Blogroll for nationaljournal.com and when I was dealing with Beltway Blogroll I was tracking the impacts of blogs on politics and policy issues. And that was a big thing back in 2004. I started Beltway Blogroll in 2005. By 2006 the world was moving toward audio and video so it just seemed to me a natural outgrowth to start tracking audio and video and I decided to launch AirCongress this particular one is a private venture of my own I am doing in my spare time and it’s really just to track audio and video in the political and policy scene that includes videos by law makers who are producing them, our think tanks by campaigns by journalists and by bloggers who like it more. See anyone who is producing content out there I want to find it and create and views AirCongress as a portal for people who want to come to one spot and find all of the best audio and video. And I am trying to bring some of my journalistic instincts to bear there by basically saying I follow this kind of news for a long time now. Here is what I think is the most important.

Lisa Padilla: Right and by following this for a long time tell our listeners a little bit about your background in journalism and your experience in DC?

Danny Glover: I have been in Washington since 1991. I started Congressional Quarterly as a reporter. Congressional Quarterly coincidentally National Journal was started by people who used to work at CQ and they are direct competitor with Congressional Quarterly. So now I work for the competition. But I worked at CQ for about 6 and half years then I went over to an Internet publication that was kind of their op-ed page on the web it was IntellectualCapital.com. Worked there for about 3 years, 3 and a half years before it folded amongst the many dotcom folding in 2000 and then I came on at National Journal and I have been here at Technology Day ever since. I was the managing director at Tech Daily for about 6 years and then became the editor last fall.

Lisa Padilla: Okay and speaking of new media in Washington I have a clip from the last presidential radio address that I am going to play for us here.

Audio clip:

“The AMT was designed to ensure that the wealthy paid their first year of taxes. But when Congress passed the AMT decades ago, it was not indexed to for inflation. As a result the AMT’s higher tax burden is creeping up on more and more middle class families. To deal with this problem Congress has in recent years passed temporary legislation that prevented most middle class tax payers from having to pay the AMT. But this year Congress is yet to pass this legislation. A failure to do so would mean that 25 million Americans would be subject to the AMT, more than 6 times a number that faced the tax last year.”

Lisa Padilla: Okay and you know I played this quickly for two reasons. First is it’s interesting that the president is podcasting. Second because you can’t get the presidents radio address as a feed on the way out what say. But also secondly because we can talk about the democratization of media and I am sure you do often and the wide and less biased and more transparent distribution of news and opinion. But it’s a sweet and sour situation and so also is hoping that you would touch on some of the barriers, these conditions you know face now and in the future with regard to politics and the contribution of you know everyday job.

Danny Glover: It is interesting that the president’s podcasting, he is actually been doing a quite a while and the weekly radio address that you played a portion of that’s not the only thing he does. They have the White House Press Briefing, they put up as a podcast.

Micro-spamming backlash

I’m pretty open about accepting friends on Facebook (unless your avatar is Marilyn Manson-esque…just kinda freaks me out.) But, as everyone is complaining these days, junk mail has made it into the real-time web. Generic product-driven replies when adding Twitter friends, “Become a fan of this page” suggestions, as if the value of micromedia wasn’t already under attack.

Could someone please provide a short, concise example of how Twitter is useful to anyone other than teenagers and uber-bloggers? I fail to see how this is even remotely useful to the rest of the world. — TechCrunchIT

My policy if I don’t know someone but they want to be my friend on Facebook? I send them a message first which asks them NOT to spam me. Most people say, sure I won’t. Some tell me they have automatic announcements, so they would remove me if I would like. Candace Breen did this, who has a great radio show for women. I asked her to remove me though, because I can take only so much feminism. I overdosed on it growing up in Marin County. In anycase, she politely removed me. Not true for everyone. Today, I inadvertently offended someone with my method.

I said:

I will add you as a friend, but
Between [name deleted] and You

Do NOT spam me with page fans or game invites, etc.

Thanks,
Lisa

and she replied:

[name withheld] September 25 at 11:22am Report
Hello Lisa,
I’m not into spamming nor time for games, I leave games to the kids,
I have a team of professional people with many talents that bring some sort of value to the table and leave it up to others if they want to network togather or ask questions of others about what they do or if it can help them in their journey.

You have offended me with your statement I don’t need a fb friend that bad or need the negativity in my circle.

I will be blocking you from the team and I would want you to block my name from your list as well.

Have A Fantastic Weekend.

Thanks,
[name deleted]

Ouch. Sigh. Well, what do you think? How do I expand my network without offending someone?

BlogTalkRadio is now easier to use

BlogTalkRadio released a redesign today, addressing many dozens of feature requests, bug fixes and overall capability to distribute content on the platform.

BlogTalkRadio is a platform, it’s an audio platform wrapped by a social network. That idea complexes many people. Mashable wrote an article today titled “BlogTalkRadio: Does it Have a Future“, evidently written by someone who hasn’t been following the rise of the company, it’s position in the market and the potential of the platform. Think of BlogTalkRadio like a multi-engine car, it can perform light and smart, or rich and heavy. You can detail it yourself, and drive it, it’s yours — or you can pay BlogTalkRadio to build a custom frame and paint it to your specs. Here’s what the new digs look like:

If you’re an author, or a business owner, of say a media or publishing company, or a non-profit person who wants to spread the word about your cause, or an individual with a particular prowess for prancing your personality by means of pr, then you’ll immediately see the potential from the business side to brand a whole station, not just one show. I do Lisacast, my show on BlogTalkRadio because it brings together a crowd of people I otherwise may not have ever met. (Thank you listeners, by the way!) That’s good for business, because I run a digital marketing agency and it’s one of the way I can show off what I do, who I know, etc. Lisacast has become one of the most popular shows on the BlogTalkRadio network with millions of listeners each month.

Here’s the official feature update:

Inline Listening

User can listen to shows right on the page in search results without leaving the page

All program guide pages Categories, Featured, Popular and Branded Networks

Reminders

Integration of episode reminder with Outlook and Google calendars

Inline Listening Flash based widget

Ability to syndicate any network content to the widget with Inline Listening
Based on Categories or Keywords
ex. http://beta.blogtalkradio.com/widget2.aspx?string=technology&siteid=1

Improved Search

Search search is pre-filtered into user experience styles
Shows – hosts that produce the episodes in the results
Episodes – the individual episodes that are results of the search
On Air/Upcoming – currently live or future shows that are results for the search topic

Ex. a search for “Gaza” – in the new site is a great departure from the ability to find shows and episodes quickly

Users can also perform advanced filtering without having to enter ‘advanced mode’ with the a tabbed navigation above search results

Keywords

We’ve opened our entire network to user choice by integrating keywords into
- RSS feeds: receive episode specific to the keyword topic
- Search
- Internal Taxonomy

We’ll be expanding this in the new year. Organic keyword integration helping BlogTalkRadio to increase our 1 million+ indexed pages at Google.

Learning Center and Community Forum

A renewed focus on engaging and making our platform more user friendly

iTunes

Fully compliant with iTunes podcasting spec and album art
New integrated one-click subscription to show, episode and keyword RSS feeds

Corporate Website

Distinguishes business content from listening site

Branded Private Networks

This addition opens BlogTalkRadio for the corporate client seeking a new media presence online with control over the interface, show aggregation and syndication of their media.

Social Network Profiles

In an effort to increase the sharing of work produced on the network we’ve added into host profiles such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Those are just a couple of examples. Here’s one in working action too, the Woman’s Day station on BlogTalkRadio.

The new home page looks much more Web 2.0 now, and has simple descriptions and content areas. It’s really easy to listen now. Easier. Really, it was pretty easy before. They’ve even got player buttons running in ads on other networks, so people can play shows directly with 1 click. Advertisers, listening?

Check out the new BlogTalkRadio web site, maybe start your own show. In the meantime, checkout previous Lisacast shows here on Lisacast.com. I have a show coming up today with the FlyLady, you won’t want to miss it. Call-in at 1 (646) 478-4956 to speak your mind about “energy efficiency.” The show airs today from 12 – 1 pm PST.

Cinegrid 3rd Annual Workshop

Fred Davis spoke at the 3rd Annual Cinegrid Workshop this year and I captured some pictures.