Category Archives: internet

Reflections on Hardly Strictly Young

Last week I learned that David Cohn knows how to tell a joke, bust a move and host an awesome conference. In all seriousness, the Hardly Strictly Young conference was a whirlwind of new people, old friends, big questions, bright ideas … Continue reading

Should you protect your status updates on Twitter?

Twitter is about the conversation. It’s about connections. It’s about transparency. So a question for you: In any other public conversation, would you make your peers and professionals sign a request form before you let them hear what you have … Continue reading

Tracking history through CNN alerts

In my history classes growing up, teachers framed newspaper clips and hung them from the walls to document historic elections. I always knew I’d experience at least one truly historic election in my lifetime, and as a child, I always … Continue reading

Hudson River crash = Citizen journalism at its best

Time and time again, student journalists in my college newsroom ask where the value is in Twitter.  “It’s just another social thing,” one guy told me just yesterday.  Then something like this happens and changes everything: The photo was posted … Continue reading

The changing face of e-mail interviews

I’ve always learned that e-mail interviews are an absolute last resort. The criteria: the interviewee has to be on the other side of the world, on a spaceship or in jail. But as e-mail and other web-based networks (Twitter, Facebook) … Continue reading

In economic struggles, newsrooms should turn to the web

It’s old news: the Internet makes life easier. Yet, still, I’m always astonished to find that some professionals still don’t consider it a serious, practical, and usually ideal solution to budget cut problems.    Let me explain… As a member … Continue reading

Why Gmail themes don't work for me

I’m not one to criticize Google for anything. I love what they do and any innovation is accepted with arms wide open. But Gmail themes just aren’t hitting the spot. We live in an increasingly visual-based society. That’s why the … Continue reading

Talks with a Yahoo news guru

Steve Enders, Cal Poly alumnus and senior product manager at Yahoo! News, gave a keynote lecture Thursday at Cal Poly’s journalism week and shared some interesting perspectives. A few things Steve emphasized: “I never thought I’d be where I’m at … Continue reading

Plug into now

How many people are stuck in an elevator right now? What about square acres of forests being cut or the amount of workers on sick leave at this very moment? Through a brilliant marketing campaign that caters to Internet users’ … Continue reading

Random flickr things

Web engineer John Allspaw from photo-sharing Web site Flickr gave a seminar at Cal Poly Tuesday that was mostly focused on capacity planning. While most of the technical stuff went over my head, a few interesting/funny moments from the evening: … Continue reading

Facebook: A newspaper's best and worst friend

Guest blog by Ryan Chartrand The problem Newspapers have made some pretty desperate moves in the last few years. They’ve cut pages, cut staff, cut paychecks, but then decided to try to add social networking to their Web sites. Sure, … Continue reading

Google tools to use in the newsroom

Google Calendars Things to schedule: Budget meetings Deadlines Must-cover events Special editions Why it’s useful: Can be shared with everyone on staff Collaborative – everyone can contribute Embeddable Google Documents What to use it for? Stories: If the newsroom server … Continue reading

Twitter election center is amazing

I have never experienced anything like watching live comments on a VP debate as it happens: http://election.twitter.com/ Web 2.0 is truly amazing… More on this later…

Update: Chicago Tribune redesigns, drops "Trib" rumor

The big Chicago Tribune redesign has been released and, not surprisingly, it’s not the version that was heavily circulated around the Web that featured the title “Trib.” Here are a few before and afters: A prototype that surfaced the web … Continue reading

Online social networking shaping real-life social gatherings

Who is going to be tagged in your wedding album on Facebook? As Gen Y gets older, more real-life events are increasingly centered around the online product. I recently went to the wedding of my boyfriend’s high school friends and … Continue reading

Recruiter: "Content producers are reporters of present/future"

I previously blogged about Sign On San Diego’s interactive job fair, and now that it’s live and running, I didn’t miss an opportunity to chat live with a San Diego Union-Tribune recruiter. Here are the basics of our chat Monday: … Continue reading

SDU-T tries to win against Craigslist

Why go to a newspaper site to find/post job listings when Craiglist is easy and free? Localization and interactivity is the answer at the San Diego Union-Tribune. SignOnSanDiego.com, the U-T’s site, is doing something completely innovative and brilliant– an interactive … Continue reading

Facebook's new application menu bar

After Facebook was down for a few hours today (an inevitable consequence of the big switch to the New Facebook), users will find a major difference on their bottom menu: Application navigation. Production manager for the new Facebook Mark Slee … Continue reading