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Eds Note 10/5: It was brought to my attention that the links in this slideshow are not clickable in the embed here. I included them all below this post.
Ever see a tip that’s too good to be true (it probably is) or a photo so amazing you just can’t believe it (don’t)? Sometimes you can’t just [...]
If you were committing an act of news on Friday, June 10, chances are every national news organization missed it.
Why? We all had boxes and boxes of printed emails of an ex-political official to go through. From the New York Times to Mother Jones/MSNBC/ProPublica, the Washington Post and my own employer – many national news sources spent enormous amounts [...]
Last week I went over a few tips for setting a social media strategy and persona for your news org’s branded account(s) and tips for using those accounts as a brand. Today, let’s get into audience engagement on social media tools. These tips have served me well as both a brand and as an individual, helping [...]
Pew released a new study on Twitter demographics today that found only 8 percent of Americans on the web use Twitter. Of that 8 percent, only 2 percent use Twitter on a typical day. Keep in mind that about 74 percent of American adults are internet users, meaning that the Twitter users make up about 6 percent of the entire adult population.
This news shouldn’t be surprising, but maybe it is to those who live in the Twitter echo chamber.
When all of your friends, your coworkers, your spouse and the media you consume are on Twitter, it may seem logical to believe a great deal of America is as well. This is a dangerous assumption for journalists and media organizations to make – and I know I’ve been guilty of it from time to time.
While I still think it is very important for journalists to use Twitter, the following facts must be emblazoned on the brains of media Twitterati:
- Twitter represents a very small group of people in your area.
- Being popular on Twitter doesn’t necessarily make one popular or important in real life.
- Re-tweets, replies and Twitter referrals do not adequately represent the larger interest in or importance of your work as a journalist.
- Most people that use Twitter don’t use it to get news.
Now, the study. The Pew study did find some interesting demographic tidbits that should be making us rethink how we approach the tool.
- There are more American women using Twitter as opposed to men (10% to 7%)
- Internet users ages 18-29 are significantly more likely to use Twitter than older adults.
- African-Americans and Latinos web users are more than twice as likely to use Twitter as are their white counterparts.
- Urban residents are roughly twice as likely to use Twitter as rural dwellers.
So what does all of this mean?
Continue reading There’s a whole Internet outside of Twitter, so don’t forget it
Sorry it’s been so long, but it’s been crazy busy as TBD’s preparing for the holidays and other events. This’ll be a quick one, just a few links I’ve been reading of late. Have a happy Thanksgiving, folks.
Social media roundup
How Investigative Journalism Is Prospering in the Age of Social Media – Great ideas from several resources [...]
As promised, I’m reporting back on TBD’s election day experiments.
The Voting Issues Crowdmap seemed to be successful. We had a lot fewer reports than in the primaries, but considering D.C. turnout was lower and there were fewer issues reported overall, I’d say that’s accurate. We got 20 accepted reports in and some were very intriguing. Take [...]
Geolocation meets deals
Last news first. Facebook announced today that it will be doing more with its location feature, including offering deals tied to location. This could spell trouble for other geolocation providers like Foursquare and Gowalla, group buying sites like Groupon and, sadly, news sites looking for revenue streams. Facebook is offering these deals [...]
With the midterm elections coming tomorrow, lots of news outlets will likely be launching their fanciest new toys and social media ideas to best pull in that coveted election night audience on the web. TBD’s no exception, though our election day experiments are based in off-site crowdsourcing to better inform our on-site coverage.
As we did with [...]
So you’ve got a great idea for a user-contributed map you need to launch RIGHT NOW. Ushahidi’s Crowdmap makes it pretty easy, and hopefully this post makes it even easier. All examples shown are from TBD’s Crowdmap for D.C.’s election.
First of all, if you’re mapping a crisis, Crowdmap recommends checking our their Emergency Response Strategy first (pdf).
Also, check and see if anyone else has done your map idea with a Google Search. If someone else has already built a map of what you want to do in the same area, maybe you should just help them out instead of replicating the work.
The Quick Build
Sign up for a Crowdmap account at www.crowdmap.com and log in.
1. Click on Create New Deployment
2. On the deployment setup page, pick a url, name and tagline for your map. Keep SEO in mind here to make it easier to find. (You can edit this later, so don’t sweat it too much). Click Finish.
3. Click on admin dashboard for your map or go to http://yourmapname.crowdmap.com/admin
This is your map’s Dashboard. Bookmark it. Your map is now live and activated. If you need to launch it right now, you can – though there’s further additions and customizations you can do. Note: With the default settings, people will only be able to submit reports on the site.
More after the jump (had to do it for images…)
Continue reading How to build, manage and customize a Crowdmap
Every election since I started my professional career has led the news organization I was working for at the time to say, “We really should have a map of election problems.” Then we’d build some UGC map held together by virtual duct tape. Sound familiar?
User-populated maps have come a long way in the past few years [...]
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