Blogging

A conversation outside the walled garden

Posted on by Kevin Sablan

Many journalists strive to spark conversation. Of course, those conversations happen outside of your web site. If you wrote only for a newspaper, would you want people only to discuss issues as they stand around the newsstand?

With that, here is a short conversation that happened on Twitter, sparked by my post about linking in a traditional content management system.

http://twitter.com/#!/amyjobr/statuses/29586496231055361

Steve Myers is Managing Editor at Poynter Online.

Twitter / meancode: @myersnews @amyjobr AFAIK most …

In his Linked In profile, Ken Edwards says he “launched bgnews.com, the Bowling Green State University web site for the student-run newspaper, The BG News” back in 1997. In this tweet, he includes AmyJo Brown (@amyjobr), who retweeted Myers’ original message.

Twitter / myersnews: @meancode Yes, most blogging …

Twitter / meancode: @myersnews You mean like iQue …

IQue is an “editorial workflow solution” made by a company called MediaSpan. They also make Transporter, which is described as an “automation and transformation engine.”

Twitter / meancode: @myersnews I assume you mean …

Twitter / meancode: @myersnews BTW, at BG News, …

Do you find it harder to link in a CMS than a blog?

Posted on by Kevin Sablan

Add link icon
The difficulty of adding links in a content management system is one excuse Amy Gahran (@agahran) hears from news organizations for not linking.

Our content management system makes it difficult or impossible for reporters to insert links into stories.

Before reading Gahran’s post about how missing links hurt online news, I had heard that same reason. I admit that it feels more cumbersome when I add a link in most CMS platforms that when I do the same in WordPress, although I can’t pinpoint why. Most systems I’ve used implement a WYSIWYG text editor that includes that nearly ubiquitous chain-link icon for links.

I need your help to understand this. Do you use a CMS and a blog? Do you find it easier to link when you’re blogging? Why or why not?

Journalism links and the blogging linkers

Posted on by Kevin Sablan

I love Mediagazer, and find my own Paper.li-powered The J Daily interesting, there are quite a few blogs that provide regular posts that round up news about news and journalism. Here are some for you to check out and add to your RSS reader.

What should publishers do about embedded content?

Posted on by Kevin Sablan

Twitter preview of blog post

Embedly is an incredible technology that converts links into embedded content. The screenshot above shows how Embedly’s Parrotfish plugin (for Safari, Chrome and Firefox) works with Twitter.com to convert a shortened URL into an actual excerpt from the content on that page.

Storify and other so-called curation tools (see my What is curation storify) use Embedly, so I’m very excited about this and any other embedding technology, but I wonder how publishers who rely on on-site display advertising feel about tools that basically allow people to view some or all of their content without actually visiting their site.

What should publishers do about embedded content? Here are some crazy ideas.

  • Accept that people get content in new ways that don’t involve visits to your site.
  • Thank Embedly for building attribution, with links, into its API.
  • Understand how to leverage embedded content to build your brand(s).
  • Embed advertisements directly into your content.
  • Figure out other ways to generate revenue.