Sell your own photos on your site

A pretty smart photog I know, Gerik Parmele, shared this link on his FriendFeed a few days ago. Still need to investigate it a bit more, but I'm thinking it may just work for someone with a niché market and audience.

Holy Educational Linkfest Batman

Here's 100 links to free online courses related to journalism, blogging and new media.

There's something for everyone in here. I'll have to carve out some time to take a few of them myself.

Free Online video and Multimedia Training

Angela Grant over at NewsVideographer put together a link fest of good resources to learn on the cheap.

IWantMyRocky to become InDenverTimes

Former Rocky staffers are trying to put together an online news source with paid subscriptions. Should be interesting to see how this all develops. They need to get 50,000 subscribers before the end of April to make it happen.

I will be watching this one with hawk-like eyes to see how it all evolves. I hope they will be producing content that no other media outlet will be –other than some of the great writers and staffers that are bringing their talent to the table– otherwise why pay $60 for an annual online subscription when I can read The Denver Post online for free? Looking at the staff of INDT, I don't see any visual journalists yet either. Hope they rectify that as well.

We shall see. I hope it becomes a precedent, really.

The Economics of Giving It Away

Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson on how the advent of digital bytes has changed several business models and the need to find new models in the now land of free on the Internet.

In a battered economy, free goods and services online are more attractive than ever. So how can the suppliers make a business model out of nothing?

Found via Macloo on Twitter

Flickr Clock

Pretty cool visualization of Flickr video postings.

Found via Journerdism

Finally a step in the direction

I get asked all the time what I intend to do when I get done with graduate school at the University of Denver. I really haven't been able to show anyone an example and I struggle to constructively describe the creations in my skull.

Here is one of the few examples I can point someone to when they ask that question again. The Las Vegas Sun has been making some of the most complete and creative multimedia experiential productions that I have seen. Many outlets seem to feel that putting video, text, audio and photo galleries into a page will be effective enough. And while that could be argued, they are all just stand-alone elements in the same coral. Thirst in the Mojave takes all those elements and makes each one act and react from the others.

One of the producers, Zach Wise who is now at the NYTimes, posted on his blog about the production as well. He was the brains behind Soul of Athens as well.

Tools for News

A pretty good beta database for all kinds of journalism tools to use. Register and you can add to the growing list. 

Need help with some photo biz works?

John Harrington's book "Best Business Practices for Photographers" has been uploaded to AmazonOnlineReader. You can read it there for free to see if you want to buy it.

Listened to John speak at a workshop a few years ago. He's a smart guy and must know what he's doing considering the photo empire he has created.

Umm, WOW! That's a lot of viewers.

NewTeeVee put together an interesting post about the volume of people consuming information on the web during election night. The numbers are staggering.

Check it out.

Tell me people don't enjoy looking at photos

Some serious numbers of photos being uploaded to a couple social networks. Flickr and Facebook are hosting over 13 BILLION photos.

And that's just two of the several popular social networking sites.

Watershed moment in the future of American politics?

"We know it's in the millions," he said of the number of e-mails that lawmakers in the House have been receiving. "But we haven't counted yet, because when you're about to get hit by a tidal wave, you don't count the drops of water in the wave."

Seems as though millions of Americans let their voices be heard not only by calling their representatives. They used the fastest communication tool available. E-mail. And the US House wasn't ready for the traffic.

This is the first presidential election cycle that is saturated with the use of online tools and portals. The ease and effectiveness of the Internet in communication will become more and more integrated into our world. Hence, the iPhone and Android phones are the early stages of the evolution towards the mobility and connectivity of our communication world.

Where's the line?

Parents are now social networking their children before they are barely even cognizant of life. Does this further the social interaction of people or does this go too far? Is there a line of no return in our constant sharing and publishing of our lives?

I know that I over broadcast my life at times and am too hyper-connected to various portals of social and digital media. I'm sure some people get sick of some of my pointless Twitter updates which is also connected to my Facebook and FriendFeed. Will all of this computational connecting become shallow and get people to connect in reality again? Social networking has seemingly taken over the web with it's ability to search out those of likemindedness and communicate. I just don't think that it is enough of a replacement for the true social interactions of a true social species.

I guess we'll see, right?

The nightmare that is online video compression

Angela Grant over at NewsVideographer posted a week or so ago her settings for compression and was given a few other resources for figuring out what kind of hand grenade to use. I'm hoping we can figure out a better number set to work with the new Scripps player.

Future browsing experience?

Here's a video clip about a browser in development by the Mozilla folks. There's some interesting notions in there as well as some that will probably be developed faster than the final browser. Scary, yet interesting stuff.

And people wonder why social networking works so well

Microsoft studied their instant messenger users and learned that the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is nearly true. It's 6.6. Can you say LinkedIn? That's basically the premise for that site: Who do your friends know that could get you a job or some business?

Social Media: What the...

A great slide presentation about what social media is, can be and might become. Pay attention to trends and try to predict for potentials.

Found via Danny Holland

Foreshadowing your own demise

A designer at the Mercury News shot a series of carnage photos after a few rounds of layofffs at the paper and posted them on Flickr. Everyone found solace and some humor in the midst of all the chaos. Well, the ax felled his job as well.

Twitter's got a competitor - PLURK

It's a bit more interactive and visual, but the biggest catch is the karma points. Based on your use and other's feedback on your use you gain or lose karma points. An interesting way to try and keep it real and away from the spammers, I guess. We'll see if it works. I'll probably stick with Twitter for a bit longer though.

Twitter meets YouTube

So how about a service that combines the microblogging and "following" nature of Twitter and the video capabilities of YouTube? Well, here you go. It only seems like a natural evolution in the realm of social Internet tools. Hopefully I'll get into the beta, so I can add my quality facial expressions to my random thoughts. Watching the continual uptick of Twitter use for journalism as well as social implications, I can see Seesmic doing just as well if not better. With a face to the content there may seem to be more of a notion of truth or validity than just words in a balloon.