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furryscalyman, via Flickr (CC license)
JD Lasica thinks social media tools are in dire need of an upgrade. |
When online-media tools are user-friendly and versatile, it's more likely that more people will figure out how to use them creatively and well. Longtime blogger, author, and social media pioneer
JD Lasica is on a continuous quest for better online tools. His effort just got a boost with a
$15,000 Knight News Challenge grant.
For the next year, Lasica will explore in his blog, Socialmedia.biz, his vision of a community media toolset: easy-to-use social media tools (plug-ins, scripts, guides and tutorials) that can expand public participation on citizen media sites.
Says Lasica, "When Marc Canter and I launched Ourmedia two years ago, it literally took us months to translate the geeky out-of-the-box Drupal content management system (CMS) into language that could be understood by regular humans. We did a pretty good job, but it required some serious chops in the nerd department.
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"The situation hasn't improved much. When citizen publishers want to launch community news sites, where do they turn? Building a publishing infrastructure from the ground up is no easy task. While there are more than 300 open source content management systems out there -- including Drupal,
Plone and
Joomla -- the vast majority are written by geeks for geeks. We need to get the coders and the public-facing user interface people in the same room and on the same page!"
Here are some tools Lasica would like to see in this online toolbox:
- Out-of-the-box community publishing solution based on an extension of either the base code for Drupal or ArmchairGM (which supports the Openserving.com initiative).
- Set of widgets that are customizable and of particular value to sites publishing community news, political events and related topics.
- Customizable templates (sleek, CSS-ready) with mastheads, themes and graphic icons that can be adapted to different localities, regardless of CMS or platform.
- Multimedia publishing tool (free, cross-platform) for distributing videos, podcasts and photos to multiple hosting destinations.
- Instant feeds: RSS and Media RSS.
- Google Maps configured for use by local communities.
- CMS modules or capabilities: Advancedsearch, navigation controls, social networks and groups, community chat, customized blog posts, comments, forums or message boards.
- Preconfigured online video which allows people to publish to local channels based on tags or a structured ontology. If you're a community publisher in Boise, you may wish to create channels about the city council, crime, recreation, senior living, youth news, etc.
- Resource directory: Public domain and Creative Commons-licensed images and clip art.
- Wiki plug-ins so wikis can be integrated into the local sites to spur community involvement in structuring solutions to local issues.
- Tutorials and screencasts: Detailed guides on how other local sites successfully use Web 2.0 tools and databases in their communities.
Of course, professional news organizations could benefit from this toolset, too. Lasica notes that Morris Communications runs the citizen media site BlufftonToday and six radio stations of the Anchorage Media Group on Drupal. "They've indicated they'll be sharing with the Drupal community all the code for new modules that they've developed. Very cool!"
Also, in late 2006 McClatchy debuted its first Drupal site, buzz.mn -- a community site for neighborhoods and cities in the Twin Cities metro area.
According to Lasica, "Any news organization that cares about where their marketplace is heading should closely observe -- and probably work with -- Web 2.0 pioneers."
He points to one starting point: "Some news site staffers have started a conversation about this in a Drupal user group devoted to collaboration."
If you want to call attention to JD's list of...
