You know how they say “information wants to be free?” Well, when it comes to news, that hasn’t always been the case. Sure, there’s fair use, which lets you use small subsets of copyrighted material under certain circumstances. But if say, CNN hosted a presidential debate, they could restrict viewers from posting clips of that […]
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It’s all in the presentation
I spent a fair amount of time juggling in high school and college. Not metaphorically, but literally. I can toss three balls, clubs, torches, whatever up in the air. On a good day, I can do five balls for a few seconds, but I’ve never quite managed to get very far with higher numbers. I […]
Top news sites that don’t get RSS are driving readers away
The International Center for Media and Public Agenda released a study this week examining RSS use by 19 top news sites. The results? Most just don’t get it. Or to be more precise, they don’t give it. While all 19 news sites offered an RSS feed, those feeds varied widely in utility. Some sites put […]
Search engine traffic to new sites continues to rise
Hitwise has released some data on online news trends over the last year. A few interesting facts: News aggregators such as Google News, Yahoo! News and the Drudge Report continue to be the leading source of traffic for news web sites. Google and other search engine traffic for news sites is on the rise: in […]
Local politics moves (slowly) into Web 2.0
So I’m putting together a story for NPR on the mayor’s race in Philadelphia. I’ve attended a couple of debates, interviewed a few candidates, and talked to people on the street. Today I sat down to spend some quality time with the candidate’s websites and check out their television ads. But on a whim, I […]
PC World editor quits in stand for editorial integrity
Wired’s Epicenter blog is reporting that PC World Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken quit after parent company IDG’s CEO Colin Crawford told him to kill a story titled “Ten Things We Hate About Apple.” The piece was meant to be light-hearted, but Crawford allegedly told McCracken it wasn’t advertiser friendly. Apparently Crawford had also been pressuring McCracken […]
Joost free-for-all
I went and checked my Joost invitation status today, and wouldn’t you know it, I’ve got 999 invites. Well, 993, since I sent out a few to anyone who entered my recent contest. Now, I don’t have the time and energy to give away 993 invites one at a time. But if anybody wants an […]
Top umpteen reasons to quit/keep your job
The internet likes lists. OK, the internet’s an inanimate network of computers and could care less what you write. But people like lists because they’re easy to digest. Give me a topic, and I’ll show you a list that’s been made into an email forward, submitted to Digg, and plastered all over the internet. But […]
Do journalists or bloggers inspire confidence?
The End of Journalism poses an interesting question about bloggers, journalists, and the public trust. If journalism is one of the least trusted professions, and people are keenly aware that you can’t believe everything you read on the internet, especially blogs, where does that leave readers looking for information? The truth is, you can get […]
Joost contest ends tomorrow
This is just a quick reminder. If you’re in the market for a Joost invite, my contest ends Wednesday at midnight. I’m giving away my last two invitations. All you have to do to enter is: Click on this link for my contest page. Leave a message in the comments on that page. If you […]
ABC News redesign adds more video, user comments, and citizen journalism
ABC News is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its website this May by launching a new site design. The site design is a bit cleaner, and has some nice features like icons next to each headline to easily let you know if there are photos, videos, visitor polls, or just text. The site also makes […]
A (brief) tale of two operating systems
For anyone who’s been following my blog for the past few weeks, it should be obvious that I’m developing a love-hate relationship with both Windows Vista and Kubuntu Feisty Fawn. Here’s the thing. We’re moving in three weeks. Up until then, we live on a university campus where my wife is finishing up her master’s […]
Cheap web hosting
This blog is still powered and hosted by Google’s Blogger. But I decided it was time to get my own domain name. Unfortunately BradLinder.com was taken, so I settled on BradLinder.net. Having never purchased a domain before, I spent some time checking out a number of sites. I was about to use GoDaddy, which promised […]
Debate over email interviews continues
This story just will not die (probably because people like me keep dredging it up). Jeff Jarvis weighed in today on the question of whether journalists should be willing to conduct interviews by email. Jarvis basically says that there’s no good reason journalists should avoid email interviews because: If journalists want to set the terms […]