DFM chat on online comments and annotations

Journalists, Digital First Media peeps, anyone who wants to are going to be taking part on our Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, to talk about all things journalism.

Today we are revisiting an evolving and lively issue: Online comments! *ducks under table*

What is the most constructive way to promote good online comments and/or annotations? Starting with the assumption that you do want to have a conversation around your site's stories and other content, what is the best way to present them?
Or are they doomed from the start?

never tweet

There are at least four ways to ~comment~ on this topic today! You can use Disqus at the bottom of the post (they're  not moderated, so be nice. I do get an email for each one); you can use #dfmchat on Twitter or use the ScribbleLive container below; or you can annotate any part of this post using Genius. Just select any part of the text here and go wild. There are other creative ways to comment, of course. Why don't you share those ideas with us?

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

Bob Dylan played pool in Kingston, but where?

"Bob Dylan playing pool, Kingston, N.Y., 1964." reads the caption on a photo of by Daniel Kramer, who followed Dylan for a year starting in Woodstock.

I stumbled upon that factoid on a recent Google alert. I masochistically send myself alerts for all things Kingston N.Y., which mostly leads back to news items from local news sources, and also out of town obits and police items related to Kingston natives or people who live here, and the occasional gem like this.

As I'm wont to do, I took to the power of the crowd to find out where in Kingston this photo was taken. There was nobody to ask about this here on a very quiet Easter newsroom Sunday. It would have been easier to scream across the room, after all, but it was not to be this time. 

So I yelled at the cloud.

Over at the "I'm from Kingston" Facebook group. I was informed that this was on the second third  floor of the Clermont building, on top of what used to be Bop to Tottom, which is the red on the 360 image above. The first floor, will become a larger Duo Bistro. It was Uptown Billiards at 293 Wall Street in Kingston.

@ivanlajara That's true, the Dylan photo was taken there.. Rick Danko told me the pool hall was up there on Wall Street & John, Kingston.

— grasshopper (@mercuryrevvd) March 28, 2016

That's Mercury Rev's Sean "Grasshopper" Mackowiak  in that tweet..

Kramer shot the cover of Highway 61, among other things.

Among those other things shot by Kramer, is a photo of Bob Dylan playing chess in Woodstock. 
Time to yell at the cloud again.
Where in Woodstock was this photo taken?

Uptaded 3/29 at 11 a.m. Matt Cahill, in the comments, points out:

The pool hall was not on the second floor of the Clermont building,but the 3rd floor.The 2nd floor was Eng's chinese restaurant,and prior to that it was Shanghai Lou.The pool hall was woned by Nick Caslich and later by Bob East.

Managing Editor Tony Adamis reminded me that former staffer Jesse J. Smith (now with the Kingston Times) wrote about this a while back. I was able to track the story to the microfilm and the disk in the building, and I've reposted it online, because it was removed online at some point during a site migration.

I've also found the David McDonald's "Bob Dylan in Woodstock" segment from the 2006 documentary. "Woodstock Revisited," also embedded below.

Bob Dylan in Woodstock from David McDonald/Filmmaker on Vimeo.

The town supervisor adds:

@PreviewFreeman Leaves out story of Frank and Mona in Memphis Blues Again.

— JeremyWilber (@JeremyWilber) March 29, 2016

@PreviewFreeman Monas's husband Frank (they were both part of the folkie scene then) was a railroad man. Now listen to song.

— JeremyWilber (@JeremyWilber) March 29, 2016

DFM chat on guidelines for covering news in social media

Breaking news and/or metaphor

Journalists, Digital First Media peeps, anyone who wants to are going to be taking part on our Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, to talk about all things journalism.

Today we are talking about covering breaking news on social media. What guidelines should reporters, without editors, have when publishing information? How do you deal with real-time verification? What tools do you use to maximize coverage and not have to worry about tech? Bring your ideas, tools and #realtalk!

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.

The travails of an informed sense of place

I wish I had a treatise about the toils and tribulations of torments
but I don't.
I'm simply here and happy to be.
So when things look difficult I cherish existence a little more, with a tinge of the necessary sadness that helps inform my sense of place and privilege.
With that in mind, Let's move forward.

Post text - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

The algorithm giveth

One of the difficult things of figuring out the right way to present ~content~ on social media is that the platforms that host the content change all the time, and their goals don't necessarily align with those of media types. As more and more producers become more dependent on forces outside of their control, they lose the ability to showcase their offerings.

You can't make up the rules when you are playing someone else's game.

At the end of the day, distilled from all tech and rules and lines of code, the best stuff (hopefully) ends up on top.
It's always a race, but where we go is up to us.

Shamrock Run world

A video posted by Daily Freeman (@dailyfreeman) on Mar 16, 2016 at 6:29am PDT

How to cover a live event with a portable 360-degree camera

The possibilities afforded by limitations

The key to working with limited time and resources is knowing what they are, and using them as a clearly defined starting point.
You know what you have. You know what you want.
You know what you can do. And you know what you want to do.
That way, instead of being caged by your limitations, you can use them to hack your way into new workflows and paradigms.
The path is clear, especially when you are the one who's making it.

The incessantly distracting blathering of unremarkable silence

Wanted silence is the best— a island found after spending too much time in the sea of noise.
The isolating nature of unwanted silence, on the other hand, can be a frustrating staring contest with emptiness, or worse, a downward spiral into a subconscious shouting match between fear and doubt.
How you choose to fill your silence depends on your circumstance and state of space. In any case, you can always make a small noise, audible or spatial, and be done with it.

Lady called the newsroom

Lady called newsroom because she couldn't find the sudoku, but we found it.

And there was much merriment.

— Ivan Lajara (@ivanlajara) March 1, 2016

But then she called back because it really wasn't on Monday.
And there was much puzzlement.

— Ivan Lajara (@ivanlajara) March 1, 2016

But then she called back because it really wasn't on Monday.
And there was much puzzlement.

— Ivan Lajara (@ivanlajara) March 1, 2016

"Don't get old," she told me.
We laughed, heartily.
"I only buy the newspaper for sudoku and the tv guide."
We laughed, nervously.

— Ivan Lajara (@ivanlajara) March 1, 2016

*We now return to your regularly scheduled tweets of takes*

— Ivan Lajara (@ivanlajara) March 1, 2016

DFM chat on live news video

Journalists, Digital First Media peeps, anyone who wants to are going to be taking part on our Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, to talk about all things journalism.

ugh

Today we are talking about live video! What are the best platforms to use that are easy to use and help maximize audience? What tools do you need for desktop and mobile? What are the potential risks and rewards of such endeavors? Say hi in a live video platform of your choice!


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.

The unflinching capture of unchallenged thoughts

For longer than I can remember, I've had unannounced ideas and thoughts and phrases pop into my head to pronounce their greatness, only to leave just as quickly, as it laughing, forever getting lost in the fog of oblivion, their presumptive greatness never to be tested or challenged.
No longer. I am writing these suckers down, forcing them into a page. Or, as is my case, the insipid Notes app inside a cold iPhone. If they are indeed great or have potential, they'll be freed. Otherwise, they'll face true oblivion, no longer tormenting me with What Ifs and You Should Haves.
Here's one such sentence:

I don't have spontaneous lyricism.

Oh, well.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

DFM chat on new Facebook changes

Journalists, Digital First Media peeps, anyone who wants to are going to be taking part on our Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, to talk about all things journalism.

Today we are talking about new Facebook changes, including new reaction buttons, Instant Articles and more. How can newsrooms use these new forms of engagement? How do you interpret the data from it? How cautious should you be as a journalist in using these buttons yourself? Are you planning on using Instant Articles? (What about notes? Remember those?) What about live video on Facebook and 360-degree video?

Posted by Ivan Lajara on Wednesday, February 24, 2016

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.

The Strange and Terrible Saga of the obfuscated ideas

When your digital environment is a collection of empathetically dissonant and disparate ephemeral dreams and your real world is an allegoric reflection of your redundant alliteration, you risk mangling your ideas with malapropisms.
But even if you don't, obfuscating your thoughts with nice sounding words is a terrible form of hiding. You're not clever if you aren't clear.
I'm talking to myself here, so let me restate the original thought:
You might get confused when your Internet is all over the place.
Now that we've cleared that up, let's go all over the place.

Perspective is hindsight is everything

Many of you probably have a Facebook memories feature activated, where the first thing that shows up in your feed when you first visit Facebook is a post from years past from that very old day.

Very quickly, one thing becomes clear.
The jarring triviality of some posts you thought important at the time is tempered by the emotion that others bring, but this warmer feeling is also leveled by the anxiety caused from the potential resurfacing of some old thing you'd prefer to remain forgotten.

And it's all being done by computer code. The robots are tinkering with your feelings.

DFM chat on blogging and its value

A Tumblr reblog from 2012 illustrates ways
news orgs use blogs and platforms. Also, teens

Journalists, Digital First Media peeps, anyone who wants to are going to be taking part on our Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, to talk about all things journalism.

Today we are talking about blogging and how it's evolved and what platforms have adopted its ways. Do you (still) have a blog or have your ideas moved graduated to other platforms? Should they? Is it still a thing? Or did they just got absorbed elsewhere? What traits do blog have that have value in a blog? Bring your blogging tips and your #realtalk!

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.

Stretch and stitch, stat

Programming note: Yesterday's Internet Today will now start with a 360 photo, which you can also enjoy in virtual reality. So if you have a smartphone, all you need is a viewer.

Here's how:

 Let me know how it works (or doesn't) for you.

Remember that experiment where I suggested writing a sentence a week and taking a picture? I'm still doing that, though I'm beginning to slip? 

So here is a sentence I always wanted to write but haven't quite finish formulating, the one about how all the ideas are floating in the air, and will land on more than one person, and will escape your head as soon as you want to write them down. Those are the best ideas, capricious bastards that they are. 

Born of frustration

*This conversation didn't happen while listening to this*

"Hey, Ivan! How come you haven't written a newsletter post in over a week?" wrote no one ever.
"I've been terribly busy!" I didn't say to this nonexisting person.
"Thanks for asking, though!"

Regular readers of Yesterday's Internet, Today! might have also noticed that the photo above is not a Google Glass image. I have finally retired the device, a year late and a dollar I didn't even have short. The truth is that the device forced me to look around for photos to take, ironically making me pay attention to the world outside the screen.
And I like that feeling.

DFM chat on social media metrics that matter

No idea what this is

Journalists, Digital First Media peeps, anyone who wants to are going to be taking part on our Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, to talk about all things journalism.

Today we are talking about social media metrics that matter. How do you leverage reach and impressions for impact? How much should journalists focus on link clicks or engagement? (spoiler: it depends!). How do you know how much impact are you having?
Bring your pica poles and your #realtalk. Let's get some numbers down.

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.

Hudson Valley tech meetup in Kingston draws scores

An estimated 200 people and at least one Peruvian Life and/or Engagement long-hair editor from a ~news~ organization came to the Senate Garage in Uptown Kingston on Thursday night for the Hudson Valley Tech Meetup to get inspired, talk all things tech and exchange emails printed on "business cards," whatever those are.

Keynote speakers for the January kick-off event were Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley, who is a Mid-Hudson Valley weekender (and co-founder of Kingston Stockade FC); and Lately founder and Stone Ridge resident Kate Bradley-Chernis, who showcased her marketing campaign manager startup.

For his part, Crowley gave a passionate presentation, equal parts auto-biography and inspiration, with a couple of sprinkles of #realtalk thrown in for good measure. The lesson? Do that thing you want to do, even if people tell you that it's crazy. It will be hard. Persist and learn from your failures.
I'm not doing it justice here, it was rather lively and Pacmanhattan funny.

Here's a bit more detailed background on the event itself and the presentations, via Evolving Media Network.

For my part, I went to take a 360-degree photo from the main stage and somehow managed to literally drop the mic and subsequently get some very stern looks from the event organizers. So much for fly-on-the-wall reporting, but hey here's a photo so there's that?



The mic survived.

From left, Lately CEO Kate Bradley-Chrernis, Forsquare co-founder Dennis Crowley and meetup organizer Dan Stone take questions from the audience. 

It was an impressive event with an impressive turnout and impressive attendance, which showcased the diversity and entrepreneurial spirit of the region — and a quite a lot of energy.


Local startup founders, tech and non-tech people, along with ~content~ producers and creatives exchanged ideas, asked for help and pitched their goods and services (there was also food and drink, which the organizers noted so I'm noting that, too).

Although centered around technology, the meetup brought a range of industries from across the mid-Hudson Valley, the Catskills and a bit beyond. There were some familiar faces (you know who you are; no name dropping here), but fresh and recent talent was very present and quite refreshing.

I went in skeptical, as I'm wont to do, but I left rather surprised. Yes, there's a bit of self-marketing and promotion in all of these events, but these cats know what want and know what they're doing.

So if you are a human person (or otherwise) living in the area and with a modicum of interest in tech, I'd recommend you pay a visit to one of these meetups.
Do it for the networking or do it for the camaraderie or do it for just yourself. Heck, do it for the food and drink.
You won't regret it.

*drops mic*

DFM chat on working remotely

Hard at work at the office.

Journalists, Digital First Media peeps, anyone who wants to are going to be taking part on our Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, to talk about all things journalism.

Today we are talking working remotely! What do you need to have to file ~content~ from home and from the field? What is the most efficient way to publish copy, photos and video? Let's disrupt the content management system.

You don't like it, anyway.
Bring your tools, your links and your #realtalk.

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.

The future that passed me by

The photo above is the very first Google Glass shot I took, during orientation in New York City's Chelsea Market, inside Google's hub in June of  2013. The video below is the last thing I've taken with the device, yesterday, even though I'm trying to stop using it.

As I've stated in this space before, but in other words, the augmented reality face computer is not working the way it used to and has become as obsolete as a Sega Dreamcast, which I also have. 

Or maybe I'm wearing it 

because the future passed me by 

and I didn't notice. 

I was distracted 

trying to keep up with it

forgetting to discard the unrealized hypothesis of, 

'Maybe this will be the world we'll live in.'

This is the world we live in now. 

Commence the content.