How to make a slideshow with Pinterest and Flickr with Storify

In 2012, I wrote a tutorial on how to make a slideshow with Pinterest and Instagram with Storify. It has remained the most popular post this year, again, in this humble blog, even though it's old and it no longer works.
That's been bugging me for a while.
So I felt like I had to figure out another way. And I did. It works in that it gives you what you want: A slideshow display of your pins.

Here's how.

How to create a virtual reality 3-D panorama with your phone for Google Cardboard, for free

I'm sharing this 'tutorial' in the hopes of improving it with your input and because I googled this very thing and I couldn't quite find what I needed, so I'm trying to figure it out.

The concept is simple. Panorama and 3-D apps have been around for a while. With the advent of Google Cardboard, a lot of these images can now be seen in virtual reality. The idea then is to construct an image and making it available for others to see as panoramas, but mostly in virtual reality. The challenge is to do it for free. Sure, it'd be nice to have a 3-D rig with 16 GoPro cameras for 3-D video, but lol newsroom budgets.

On that note, the New York Times, The Washington Post, Vice and others are exploring virtual reality photo and video storytelling and their efforts are worth watching.  The Times is even giving away cardboard to support their upcoming VR app.  It's very early, still and everyone is still trying to figure things out.

So let's jump in and do it ourselves.

DFM chat on how to #snowfall your stories without knowing code

Journalists, members of Digital First Media and pretty much everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat at noon, Eastern Time.

Today we are talking about snowfalling your stories. Can it be done in small newsrooms with small to no resources (SPOILER: YES). Is it worth doing? How? Don't forget to bring your toolkit, curiosity and your real talk.

You can check out past chats over here. If you use Tweetchat you don't have to type the hashtag.

If you want to chime in, post a comment in the container or a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below.

Can small to mid size news organizations do explanatory journalism?

Journalists, members of Digital First Media and pretty much everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat at noon, Eastern Time.

Today we are talking about explanatory journalism. and how (or if) newsrooms with fewer resources should or can do it. Is it worth it? Why? And yes, what tools should you use? Bring your toolkit and your real talk.

You can check out past chats over here. If you use Tweetchat you don't have to type the hashtag.

If you want to chime in, post a comment in the container or a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below.

DFM chat on how to improve your journalism skills

Journalists, members of Digital First Media and pretty much everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time.

Today we're talking about how to improve journalism skills and offerings in the digital age and while having no time. Ask for How Tos. Bring your How Tos.

The live feed is posted below. But you can also follow the chat here or here or also here. And you can also check out past chats over here.

If you want to chime in, post a comment in the container or a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below.

How to live stream a Google Hangout

Do you want to live stream your Google+ Hangout?

Google now lets all hangouts be streamed live, so you don’t need a Livestream, Ustream or Manycam workaround anymore (which was a royal pain).

All you need is a Google+ account and a Youtube channel:

1. Start a Hangout and click Enable Hangout on Air when the Hangout window pops up. Add the people you want in. You can’t make an On Air-anything-goes hangout, you have to invite your followers, preferably just a selected few.

2. Hit OK, I’ve got it’ and start your hangout. It will still be off Youtube (If you’re not connected to Youtube, it will ask you to do so)

3.1 Grab the embed code. It’s your regular iframe code. Post on your site OR YOUR SCRIBBLELIVE BLOG. Only those participating in the Hangout can see what’s going on. Everyone else sees this

3.2 Once you’re ready, hit broadcast. When you stop it takes almost no time for the replay  hangout to appear on your Youtube channel. Then you can post that or download and put in your own container.

And yes, I eat my pencils.
Enjoy

Edit note: This post was edited to change "livestream" and any similar term, to "live streams," to avoid confusion with the live streaming service (see comments below).

How to embed a Google doc to your site

First, obviously, you need a Google Document (and a Google account to create one)

Take, for instance, this aberration.

Then use this code:

Replace "GOOGLE DOC URL GOES HERE" and paste it in the source (html) of your site.

Presto. You can change witdth and height to whatever you please.
Example:

How to increase your newsroom's engagement

So I tasked myself with improving our newsroom Twitter and Facebook presence (and your experience with us) back in late March and early April.

Sure, The Daily Freeman and its reporters are on Twitter and on Facebook. But pushing links (or asking questions for the sake of asking questions) is not really the way to go.

Here's what we did.

First, we needed some tools. I personally find the social media manager Tweetdeck immensely useful (here's why), so I decided to equip reporters with the program, and then add the link shortener bit.ly's API key so that we can keep track of  what links works and what doesn't.

"Wait a second!" You are saying right now. "What's API? (And what's up with the stick man?)"


The application programming interface is basically a language that allows programs to talk to one another. All you do is grab your bit.ly account's "key" (also known as "a whole bunch of nonsensical characters") and add it to Tweetdeck's settings (needless to say, you need a bit.ly account and Tweetdeck).

Here's a tutorial on how to merge all this:

(Actually, here's the tutorial).

All of this is basically to figure out what messages generate responses and clicks.

Second: Training. As mentioned in this space before, I set up training session for Twitter best practices and Facebook. Here's the whole enchilada, in two parts.

How to improve your newsroom's Twitter presence:



How to improve your newsroom's Facebook presence:



As a favor to you (because you probably don't have two hours to spare to watch me, me me), I've summarized it all neatly here:



Actually, for a real summary, you're probably better off reading this.

Third, execution time.

This is where the staff really shined. Unprompted, reporters are now routinely thinking in a way that incorporates these tools into their workflow. I don't have to tell you about Patti Doxsey's live-tweeting of a murder trial with an iPad, for instance. (If I do, check this out).

 Here's why we're doing this, by the way, it's not just because we can:





I also like to think that our engagement on Facebook has finally created more conversations with you. We're getting close to 2,200 likes, and there has been more connections and interactions in the past for weeks than since I remember.

Yes, there's much room for improvement, but the seeds have been planted. And they're sunflower seeds. We're tweeting more, sure, but we're tweeting valuable stuff — and not to the empty Twitter forest, which looks like this:

And this brings us to the fourth step. Evaluation, troubleshooting and repetition of successful experiments.
Using Patti's latest live-tweeting as an example. Here are some quick stats from last week's live-tweeting: The average reader of Dailyfreeman.com stayed with Patti's tweets for more than an hour. Her sessions along gathered more than 100 comments from you, some opinions, but many of them questions, which I tried to answer when I was moderating the comments.

(By the way, I used the live-blogging platform CoverItLive, so that those without a Twitter account could still follow her tweets. Here's how to use that).

Many people, incidentally, created Twitter accounts just to follow her.

Moving on. On Tuesday, we're doing a livestream of the Kingston school board candidate's forum. And we'll have a CoveritLive container for you to participate while it goes on. The livestream idea came from reporter Kyle Wind, a continuation of the many livestreams and digital-first initiatives we've had in the last year.

All this has been a bit bumpy, yes. But we're getting better and better, so hopefully you won't have to see things like this:

Or worse, this:

We'll get there.

How to improve your newsroom Facebook page

The (updated with slighly better quality) livestream!

How to use Twitter for journalism

The livestream (now with better resolution):



(By the way, it should be mentioned that at the end of the session, I got cake).

The links used were:

10 things you need to stop tweeting about - The Oatmeal

Channeling the news brand on Twitter and Facebook - Zombie journalism

 

Also by Mandy Jenkins, which I didn't get to use, is the most excellent "Accuracy and accountability checklist for social media."

The tools we discussed were Twitter, Tweetdeck and  Bit.ly.

Also, one guide I didn't get to use and should have is the Elements of Twitter Style.

Another guide I could have use but didn't was the intro to Twitter (modified) guide by Idealaber Lee Moran:

Twitter

One more link: Journal Register Company Adviser Jay Rosen, a New York University professor, explains how he tweets professionally.

UPDATE: Fellow Idealabber Kelly Metz of the Morning Journal in Ohio also has a Twittorial:

Twitorial

What happened to the QR codes in the Freeman?

Late last year, I began experimenting with quick response (QR) codes in the print edition of the Daily Freeman.


I created a Likify code and placed it at the bottom of the front page. I stayed there for a month. After gathering eight 'Likes' for our Facebook page, I decided to discontinue its run, at least on the front page, as it was using too much coveted 'real estate,' as we say in the biz (because, apparently, we want to be Realtors or something).

That was strike one for the code. I believe that if it was placed somewhere more permanently - like a flier or at distribution boxes around town, it couldn't hurt to have them (since it doesn't cost anything to maintain them, so there's no loss).

What worked against it was the fact that, most likely, you had to download a QR reader and then scan the thing to be send to a page to click the like button and then have to login to your Facebook account on your phone's browser, which probably looks like crap, because it doesn't work with Facebook apps. So instead of making it easier, it seemed to make it even more complicated for early users. My hat's off to those eight we went through it.

If you want to go through this yourself, here's a quick way of doing this.