Finally, the print copy of Internet Evangelism in the 21st 
Century is available through Amazon.com. It is $22,99 plus shipping! Also, remember to check out the print copy of Mediastrategy for Christian Witness available at the same price.
A famous New Yorker cartoon from 1993 showed two dogs at a computer, with one saying to the other, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
That may no longer be true.
A new analysis of online consumer data shows that large Web companies are learning more about people than ever from what they search for and do on the Internet, gathering clues about the tastes and preferences of a typical user several hundred times a month.
These companies use that information to predict what content and advertisements people most likely want to see. They can charge steep prices for carefully tailored ads because of their high response rates. Continue Reading »
Commentary: Understanding search engine optimization and the need to work quickly can help journalists write more effectively for the Web.
The best online newswriting differs from print newswriting; and journalism students can, and should, learn those differences. This week, I talked with my graduate online journalism class at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism about the differences in form and style between online and traditional print newswriting.Since so much news on the Web is simply repurposed from print newspaper and magazines, one might question the need to teach online as a distinct writing skill. But just because too many news organizations fail to take full advantage of the medium’s opportunities does not mean those opportunities do not exist. Online publishing offers at least four unique writing formats for journalism, and savvy online reporters ought to learn how to use write in ways that enmesh their work within the robust context of the World Wide Web. And… to do so swiftly, to remain viable in the far more competitive online publishing market. To that end, I wrapped up the class with a competitive exercise that took my students by surprise. Continue Reading »
A Sacred Heart University Poll found significantly declining percentages of Americans saying they believe all or most of media news reporting. In the current national poll, just 19.6% of those surveyed could say they believe all or most news media reporting. This is down from 27.4% in 2003. Just under one-quarter, 23.9%, in 2007 said they believe little or none of reporting while 55.3% suggested they believe some media news reporting.
…The perception is growing among Americans that the news media attempts to influence public opinion – from 79.3% strongly or somewhat agreeing in 2003 to 87.6% in 2007.
And, 86.0% agreed (strongly or somewhat) that the news media attempts to influence public policies – up from 76.7% in 2003. The Centre Daily has even more disturbing findings from this Sacred Heart poll, via Terp Mole:
“Americans are discerning, through a maze of information sources, the truth about our status in Iraq. They see more success than the media is reporting,” said Jerry C. Lindsley, director of the Sacred Heart University Polling Institute. He added, “They are especially disturbed that negative media reports damage U.S. troop morale.”
Nearly three-quarters of all Americans surveyed, 70.7%, indicated they strongly or somewhat agreed that negative media reporting damages troop morale.
COMMENT by Dan Henrich: It seems to me that we are fast approaching a news crisis in the US. Main Stream Media journalists are seeing them demise in the very near future and are crossing that line between objectivity and opinion with opinion leading in the guise of “reporting” on the war in Iraq.
Spongecell and Facebook are teaming up. Spongecell allows marketers to further spread and track peer-to-peer communications within Facebook’s user community.Events from any Spongecell-powered calendar, blog or site can be added to a user’s Facebook profile. The calendar items on a profile will show up on the mini-feed, or can be sent as an invitation to people in your network.
Marc Guldimann, CEO of Spongecell said “Online communities are where consumers ‘live’ and connect, and it’s a natural environment for marketers to communicate with their audience more organically and efficiently. The extension of the Spongecell application to Facebook is an obvious next step as many brands are seeking to engage people online and on social networks. Our customers use our software as a way to drive people to take action – from attending an event to buying a ticket to purchasing merchandise.”
“Because our software is platform-agnostic and can be integrated with many different forms of media, we empower our customers to engage their audience anywhere including on their mobile devices, MS Outlook, blogs or any web-based venue.”
Spongecell provides real-time metrics for marketers and event promoters. With a Facebook application, marketers can track comments made about their event. By segmenting audiences, people are informed about relevant content that interests them and are more likely to spread the word about events.
“The world’s top universities have come late to the world of online education, but they’re arriving at last, creating an all-you-can eat online buffet of information.
And mostly, they are giving it away.
MIT’s initiative is the largest, but the trend is spreading. More than 100 universities worldwide, including Johns Hopkins, Tufts and Notre Dame, have joined MIT in a consortium of schools promoting their own open courseware. You no longer need a Princeton ID to hear the prominent guests who speak regularly on campus, just an Internet connection. This month, Yale announced it would make material from seven popular courses available online, with 30 more to follow”.
Just after 10 am on June 7, 2007, Ryan Sit glanced at his Gmail inbox and saw the message he had been waiting nine months to receive. Sit, a 29-year-old software developer from San Diego, is the founder of Listpic, a site that used bots — automatic software-based agents — to pull images from craigslist for-sale listings and reorganize them into an easier-to-navigate, more attractive format. Instead of tediously clicking individual links to view photos, Listpic users could see them all collected onto a single page. The service was an instant success, and by early June it was pulling in more than 43,000 visitors a day and thousands of dollars a month in Google AdSense revenue.
Sit had long dared to hope that Listpic’s success might prompt craigslist to commend him, initiate a partnership, or even buy Listpic and bring him aboard. So when he saw the message from craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster in his inbox, he thought that his dreams were about to be realized.
Then he read the subject line: “Cease and desist.”
Continue Reading »
Outfoxed Media examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, have been running a “race to the bottom” in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public’s right to know.
This video provides explains how the media fits into political and social change and specifically addresses the following questions:
* How is the Press supposed to Work?
* How and why does the Press act like an Echo Chamber?
* How is media changing?
* What does it mean that the “news is becoming a conversation”?
* Will these new media changes affect the nature of politics?
* How does The Echo Chamber Project fit into all of this?
This video explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively. If you are interested in this topic, check out Clay Shirky’s work, especially: http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontolo…
Also check out David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous:
http://www.everythingismiscellaneous….
