Firstly Reuters in the first blog are taking a very mature and informed approach to the field of video blogging, they could never be attacked for a lack effort with regard to reaching the video blog viewers of the world. Vint Cerf has a great point of view as well and while I may not be a convert, he understands the level of which video blogs can reach the world. It’s a good example of how a leading media organization will continue to lead the world and a area of journalism they must have a full grasp of in order to continually do this.

The second video blog posted about the use of mobile phones is a foreign language is a good example to me personally that phones and other forms of technology can overcome various cultural barriers, whether they be language or not, a phone or the internet is the same in any country or culture and with the influx of these they will again make the world smaller and make the ease of reporting in a different country much much easier.

The third video blog or blogger Steve Garfield. The idea of live video streaming with a view to reporting news is brilliant! The only problem I have is when people like Mr Garfield are the ones reporting the news. This is the type of video blog that Reuters should be the world leader in, not Steve as innovative as he a Qik may be! This if anyone has read my previous posts will realize I don’t much care for the everyday Joe or Steve giving me my news, perhaps its an old fashioned approach but I like my news to be delivered by a professional. While I do want news on demand on the net when I want I will have to wait until networks “catch up” and start working in this particular field. This brings me to another point; other countries have system like this in place, why do Australian news networks not have systems where news can be fed live at anytime? Interesting.

And the first point that comes to my mind is after reading and viewing a couple of citizen online news organizations and the different ways in which they work is, WHY DOESN’T AUSTRALIA HAVE ANYTHING LIKE THIS!!

The latest, www.stomp.com.sg is in my opinion the best form of citizen intervention of news reporting i have seen so far. Based in Singapore stomp is an online news field where members of the public can post items of newsworthy value, the total citizen content is reportedly 80-85%. The reason i believe this is better than others is because the citizens who contribute only contribute ideas for stories or add the value of an existing story. Adding to the existing value of a story is usually via the wonderful mobile phone and its ability to capture both still images and moving images. the stories are then printed in a leading Singapore newspaper The Straits Times This is the best way to operate in my opinion. Unlike other sites such as Ohmynews contributors don’t directly report news they just influence the coverage the everyday person receives, thus not giving too much power to the contributor. a downside i believe would clog other citizen based sites. A system such as this also gives the newspaper a current affairs type approach. If an issue appears to significantly affect the greater community the newspaper could be seen a hero that enacts change. Like that of its initial story about ridiculously long queues to see medical staff at clinics across Singapore

The best system so far.

Pictures are the hook a website must use to get readers. Like a slogan or catchphrase they have to polarize the reader, whether this is for god or bad it does not matter. Newspaper sites are a perfect example. If the have a headline picture of an explosion immediatley people will be interested to find out more. This is a critsism of Australian newspapers at the moment. The Age, my preferred paper has only one image on display, while it may be the leading story, if it does not interest me i will skip it. The herald sun on the other hand has scrolling headline pictures and i always glance at however many there are. The West Australian perhaps has the best scrolling pictures often showing all facets of the media.

Pictures should be given more thought in my opinion when trying to gather more readers!

More than a normal written blog, the blogger i believe has to be much more interesting. And also appealing to the eye. Not in a personally attractive way, but with regard to body language, voice tone, demeanor and personality. Video Blogs are no different to TV in this manner in that it is very difficult to find a good host!

I think video blogs appeal to the lazy blog viewer. As we all know it is much easier to watch someones opinion rather than reading it. This is why i prefer the written blog and am not overly enamoured with the world of video blogging. While of course it has a bright future, i think written logs will continue to rule for some time.  

I’m a big fan of blogging, the trouble is finding the right one. The blog really is the new fad or tool for journalists all over the world. And with the power of the internet anyone anywhere can read it. With the advent of the internet on mobile phones, blogs are being updated more from anywhere. I recently got a new phone and it has quick links directly to the internet and to a blog address that I can type in. Although I don’t use due to the enormous expense!

Some of my favourite blogs come courtesy of www.espn.com. Everyday they select from blogs all over the net about basketball and promote a handful to the espn NBA website. Each day there is great debate about the blogs nominated with people either thrilled or disgusted at the blogs selected.

But blogs are not limited to the written word. Video blogs and podcasts are also taking the journalistic world by storm. I personally podcast the Hamish and Andy show, from the Fox FM website(www.hamishandandy.com.au). I don’t watch a lot of video blogs because they tend to eat significantly into my data allowance.

But while this is a problem for me the major problem with blogs is because of the huge numbers how can one choose? Finding a blog worth reading on a regular basis is difficult. The range and quality of blogs on the net is ridiculous. I like to use the big name media outlets to find a blog, like www.espn.com and newspaper sites particularly the times newspaper from London (www.timesonline.co.uk). Both recommend reputable blogs and writers from these sites recommend there own. My favourite of all though is without doubt Jeremy Clarkson. 

With video blogs, I’m not familiar with many but, one I have looked at in the past is an updating source from www.cricinfo.com. Every couple of days a new “blogger” usually and former cricket star voices there opinions on current topics. Names like Tony Greig and Ricky Ponting have there say and are then published on cricinfo.com. They are typically informative but not overly compelling. During the Olympics I found hundreds of video blogs from athletes. www.nba.com had blogs updates regularly from the women’s and men’s American basketball teams, which as with most things American very brash and pro America. Not my cup of tea!

But blog’s appear to be taking over, although I fear that the more people that write the more ordinary blog’s we are all subjected too unfortunately!!!! Filtering the crap will get harder and harder.

Koreas leading form of internet based new developed by Oh Yeon-ho in the early 2000’s. With 67% (33 million) of Korea’s population currently using the internet there is a wonderful base for news and views on the internet to be consumed en mass. With South Korea having has the world’s highest number of broadband connections per capita and with, I assume the most comprehensive and complete service available the idea that the worlds best online news source comes from Korea is not hard to believe. It is a distant relative to the pitiful internet services we are provided with in Australia.

Oh my news is ahead of its time in many areas. Oh Yeon-ho- came up with the idea that every person can be a journalist, this is now copied all over the world by almost every media organisation.

At the time of its origin Korea had strict media laws limiting personal opinions etc. After various revolutions Oh developed ohmynews with great success and it is now supported by nearly 70% of the population.

Oh Yeon-ho- rivals Rupert Murdoch, and can claim to be the founder of modern journalism and a dependence on the internet for news, whether it is good or bad is irrelevant.

Oh seems to have every angle covered, advertising, content, civilian reporters, feedback, advertising, editing and I would assume a huge level of censorship, imagine the crap that would get sent in from the millions that view and would have an idea to contribute!!

Question is why has this not transported in western culture on such a scale, there are obvious roadblocks in the quality and availability of the net to western countries particularly Australia. Another reason is eastern countries seem to follow the leader much more than western countries where free speech is much more liberally applied

The other question that comes to mind is the presence of competition. It appears that while there are rules on limiting media ownership, if of 70% of all people in korea are following ohmynews. How is this not a monopoly of media control and ownership?

But the best point from this weeks reading is the way journalism is being taught all over the world. With the seismic shift from print to online media, theory is becoming increasingly old and stale, I know! Every tertiary education institution has to update, and begin teaching what are becoming the worlds leading forms of media.

Wonderful point something for us all to think about:

Traditional media were (is) “really in trouble,” Min said. “It’s a critical time.” Many senior English-language journalists in Seoul confirmed that journalism education in South Korea was too theoretical. Students graduated without experience of a newsroom or evidence of having done journalism (usually demonstrated through clippings of published stories). The demand for jobs among recent graduates far exceeded the number, so newspapers could pick and choose. They usually based selection on grades rather than practical experience.

http://english.ohmynews.com

Advertising on the internet is painful!

I can’t think of anything worse, i hate it, not being one to purchase much if anything over the internet it is of no real use to me.

I think that online advertising is still a long way behind conventional advertising; this is perfectly demonstrated by internet providers still doing the majority of their advertising on TV or in newspapers.

Until the internet providers begin advertising on the net i can’t see it really developing into a conventional form of advertising. The internet is too full of crap and non useful advertising for it to be ever taken seriously among advertising agencies, spam has ruined it for everyone, to begin advertising on the internet as a major venture would be silly for a major company, people and spam filters will just delete the messages before they are read or will just ignore them.

The only way forward is to eliminate the crap! Then perhaps internet advertising can move forward, unlikely though it may be.  

The initial impact of news services asking for the general public to contribute will be the immediate decrease in personal privacy. With everyone now able to tell basically the whole world, why would anyone of note (celebrities etc) do anything at all in open air so to speak. A perfect example is Shane Warne being set up by the Daily Mirror newspaper with two women who invited him back to their house with a camera waiting. It is only a matter of time until here in Australia a high profile footballer is caught with or using drugs.  As well as this invasion of privacy the quality of news reporting will drop significantly, how can a person truly authenticate the vision they are sending into a TV station. I can see networks stopping the general public’s participation because of spam news that is being sent in with an eye to 15 minutes of fame!

The main positive though i can see is the instant live feed of an event occurring. The Collingwood footballer’s debacle of this week shows that newspapers and TV stations move slowly. News broke of further developments after 6pm so TV stations realistically had to wait until the next day to confirm the news, while if the news had come any later newspapers would have had to wait two days to release the correct information to the public.

I think that the general public controlling the news is not the future of journalism, there are too many avenues for people to mislead and lie there way onto TV.

Firstly according to studies in ALJ301, the newspaper will soon be a median of the past. By 2010 it will be a “niche” form of information for those who choose to read them. Statistics do support this, but i am not convinced that this is the case. While numbers are not rising in daily circulations they are not dwindling away as some may suggest. The obvious counter is the rise and rise of internet news and its becoming more and more available everyday. This is where the convergence of media is playing its part.

Having access to news from many different sources could be a waste of time if they are all saying the same thing. If one media organisation eg: Newscorp owns 80% of the media in a city then we are unlikely to hear any bad news regarding any of Mr Murdoch’s billions of dollars wrapped up in millions of companies. This is where individual newspapers will thrive, in telling the real news and not sugar coating it to keep the boss happy.    

Until recently in Australia owning a TV license and a newspaper in the one Australian city has not been allowed. Much to the dismay of media moguls Packer and Murdoch, but with recent law changes and rules relaxed papers and TV stations are allowed to combine, and with this comes great power and while it may mean more coverage, i think it will only mean more quantity but far less quality!