Wednesday, October 31, 2012

DFM chat: How to spot fake photos and trolls during emergencies

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 identifying and avoiding the fake photos and trolls during an emergency.


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.

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Monday, October 29, 2012

Report road and closing conditions in your area

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Electoral College debated

A Freeman editorial today argued that the Electoral College "never really worked as it was supposed to, which was to depoliticize the presidency."

In the comments, user Viking1946 writes:

"there is good reason for the establishment of the electoral college but it causes the national election to focus on small districts that can produce a swing - the fact that NYS is ignored by both candidates is because it is hoplessly (sic) a lock for the Democrat Party"

Derek Balling, however, replies:

"And without the electoral college, the election will focus on a small number of metropolitan areas where the entire election can be decided with the entire rural part of the country being a rounding error.
How is this an actual "improvement"?"
What do you think?

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

DFM chat on breaking the Social Media bubble and finding quality voices


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.

chzanimalgifs image
Today we're talking about identifying and avoiding the social media bubble (or, if you flip it, finding quality voices that inform your interests without isolating them).


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.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Presidential Debate 2012: Who do you think did a better job during the last debate

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

DFM chat on visual storytelling


Source: Imgur.
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 visual storytelling: Pictures, Instagrams, data visualizations and even gifs.


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.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Who do you think did a better job during the debate?

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

DFM chat on digital timesavers and timesucks


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 digital time-savers and timesucks (I'm looking at you Reddit).

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.

Monday, October 8, 2012

How to make an Instagram Timeline slideshow, fast

Wouldn't it be nice to display a timeline of your pretty much any combination of  Instagram photos during a particular event in a way that most of the work is done for you?

Glad you asked, paragraph, because there is a way. And it's simple. The idea is to automate all your Instagram images, time and URL into a spreadsheet automatically to then repurpose that spreadsheet into an automatic timeline tool, leaving you pretty much the task of going out and covering your event.

Let's get to it:

What you need: A smartphone with Instagram (duh!); a Google account (for Drive, formerly Docs); and an Ifttt account.

You'll need an Ifttt (if this then that) recipe. The 'this' will be Instagram and the 'that' will be a Google Drive spreadsheet. I made a 'recipe' when every time you take a photo, it adds rows into a single spreadsheet in this order: Time, Caption, SourceUrl and Url. I've also added empty fields so that it matches the timeline template.

So you don't have to do one  (but you can change it and make your own if you want to):

1. Grab the recipe.  Turn it on.

 
2. Take photos with Instagram.



 Now for the timeline. What you're going to do is copy a template and repurpose it to your automatic spreadsheet to match it.

3. Visit http://timeline.verite.co/   hit File formats and Google Doc Template.

4. Select your Google Drive account and hit continue. Copy the top row.
 

5. Visit your Google Drive (hit back to 'Google Drive' on top left if you are in the spreadsheet) and check out your new spreadsheet. There should be an IFTTT folder and an Instagram folder with an Instagram feed spreadsheet. Click on it.

6. Click on Insert and then Insert Row twice. Paste the descriptions. On Row two, add the date (MM/D/YYYY) and your timeline or event headline. On Column I (Type) add 'title'.

7. Clean the spreadsheet: Simply take 'at' out of the dates. They should reformat.

Your final spreadsheet should look like this.



8. Hit file, and Publish to Web. And copy the URL.

9. Visit http://timeline.verite.co/  Hit Embed generator (1) and paste your URL (2). Hit preview to make sure everything works (3). Copy the embed code and paste it on your site (4).

The result?
Here's the sick part: Every time you take a photo, a line will be added to the spreadsheet (which auto-publishes every 5 minutes). All you (or your editor) have to do is take the 'at' from the date in the spreadsheet and the photo will appear in the timeline.

Why would you want to do this if you can post your Instagram photos to Tumblr or even Blogger?

Because they're all in one place and you can feed them to your own website.

But it gets better.

You can turn the recipe on and off at your pleasure, and you can make different recipes for specific events.  Here are your options, which can fit into a variety of news events.:

MOAR!: If you want to get really ambitious, you can actually feed videos, tweets, even Foursquare check-ins, Flickr photos and pretty much everything you want to the same spreadsheet. You'll have to make recipes that follow the  spreadsheet format, and you might have to add dates (for Youtube videos, for instance). But most of the timeline construction will be already done for you. I will be testing these options.

What do you think?

Foursquare timeline

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Thursday, October 4, 2012

New guy

Presidential Debate 2012: Who do you think did a better job during the first debate?

Share your view: Who do you think did better? Are you better informed after the first debate?