Follow ONA 2008 online: The Online News Association conference gets underway in Washington, DC this week. Follow the action online via the official Twitter account ONA08, and the hashtag #ONA08. (If you’re tweeting from the conference, remember to include #ONA08 in your posts. More about how hashtags work.) ONA also has set up a conference forum and podcast.
Will consumers embrace ads on cellphones? (Los Angeles Times): Hmmmm… If cell carriers can subsidize the cost of phone hardware, then maybe opt-in advertisers can subsidize users’ cell phone bills? “‘Although only about nine percent of people agree with the statement that advertising on their cellphones is acceptable, 31 percent say it’s acceptable if it lowers the bill,’ said Paul Kultgen, director of mobile advertising at the Nielsen Co.”
PBS Affiliate Educates Viewers About Global Environmentalism and their Local Geography (Directions Magazine): “Craig Rosa, interactive producer, presents the ‘cross-platform, cross-editorial program’ KQED Quest, [which offers] science, environment and nature-based content for community education in schools, radio, television, and the Web. …Quest innovatively features an interactive map of Northern California as their homepage — allowing users to access radio, blog, and TV content all from one page. Craig says Quest’s mantra is: ‘geotag everything.’ Quest encourages users to download, manipulate, and/or reproduce their content any way they see fit.” (Thanks to Clem Henrikson of ESRI for the tip about this podcast episode.)
If You Whine At Facebook’s Redesign: Calm Down! (Social Media Insider): Are you encouraging your online audience to share your content on Facebook? This might be a good time to try it, since sharing content on Facebook just got easier: “For me, the new Facebook is a mixed bag. My favorite feature is probably ‘The Publisher,’ a toolbar high up on Facebook that makes it far easier to share links, photos and other content. I always felt that with the old Facebook it was surprisingly hard to share a link, and that I was always indulging in a lot of errant clicks between me and sharing.” (Free site registration required to view this story.)
Jay Mariotti and the Dead Newspapers Society (Below the Fold): “News, like most all other forms of communication today, is both accidental and on-demand. We often get news online when we aren’t looking for it, and we also get news when and how we want it. …So let’s not confuse the changes news is going through with its impact. News still matters, even if the news itself is not always recognizable based on long-held perceptions.”
United Airlines story shows how software combined with human error can have frightening results (Readership Institute): Tidbits contributor Rich Gordon observes in this wrap-up: “I don’t think the most important lessons of this story are about Web sites, journalism, software or human judgment. The lasting lessons should relate to the regulatory oversight of the world’s increasingly automated global economy. However blame for the United Airlines debacle is apportioned, something is fundamentally wrong when investors make substantial bets on a company’s stock based on a news story that anyone following the company closely would know was incorrect.”
