writethru

Attend Blogging Course at News U.

One of the best resources out there for journalists who want to retool their career is News University, which is part of the Poynter Institute. Unlike many other schools, News University is affordable and doesn’t require plane tickets to St. Petersburg.

On Wednesday, the school is offering a course called “What Makes a Great Blog: Principles for Success.” Here’s the course synopsis:

In this one-hour presentation, we’ll look at a diverse selection of popular bloggers and learn how to employ their strategies in a news environment.

In this Webinar you’ll learn:

• What qualities make up a good blog
• How to reach a wider audience
• How to blog efficiently and effectively while juggling other work
• How to create and manage robust communities of commenters
• How to follow a good number of blogs efficiently

While the course normally runs for $24.95, you can get $10 off if you are a twitter fan. Go here for the promo code, then search for the tweet called “Working on a deal for Twitter fans.”

Or go here to see if any scholarship money is left. You must apply before 5 p.m. Eastern Time today.

If you can’t make the 2 p.m. Eastern start time, register so you can watch the video recording.

Should You Become a Citizen Reporter?

Is citizen-reported journalism a fad or the answer to an expanded press? While I cringe at the whole idea as a former professional, I am fascinated by the power of such media. After all, Twitter shifted from novelty to tool almost overnight.

Consider 2-year-old AllVoices.com, which by its very definition gives me heartburn:

Allvoices is an open and highly relevant social media site “unedited by humans”, (sic) where anyone can report and add their voice from anywhere.

So does poorly-edited crap get posted without fact checking? Well, that depends on how well the “community” polices itself. Here’s AllVoices methodology:

AOL Patch’s Things Up

I know, I know, hyper-local news doesn’t seem all that exciting. Then again, America Online just paid $10 million to buy hyper-local news site, Patch, and another $10 mill for Going, writes Kara Swisher in BoomTown.

I don’t know about you, but that kind of money sounds EXCITING to me. Not that I ever planned on getting rich, but in today’s economy I’ve been paying a wee bit more attention to that bottom line thing.

A couple months ago, I actually tried contacting Patch about whether they were going to make their software available to folks hoping to start local sites. I was one of more than 230 people who submitted inquiries, according to a press release in Swisher’s post. And now I know why I never heard back from them; they were probably too busy cooking up the sale!

Patch seems to be using journalists with professional experience, but I’m completely unclear about the company’s pay structure. It’s a shame Patch never responded to my earlier inquiry.

I am a bit surprised by the $10 million price tag. After all, there is not that much local advertising on the site. Of course it doesn’t hurt that Patch’s principal investor was AOL’s new CEO, Tim Armstrong. And since he’s heavily restructuring the beleaguered company, perhaps he has a plan in mind.

Here’s what Armstrong says in the AOL press release:

“Local remains one of the most disaggregated experiences on the Web today – there’s a lot of information out there but simply no way for consumers to find it quickly and easily. It’s a space that’s prime for innovation and an area where AOL has a significant audience and a valuable mapping service in MapQuest. Going forward, local will be a core area of focus and investment for AOL.”

The upshot? Maybe we should keep our eyes peeled for job opportunities at AOL soon.

Will Ad Coop Help Monetize News?

Is better tracking technology the answer to newspapers’ woes? That seems to be Alan Mutter’s premise with his recently announced ViewPass. Mutter, who writes Reflections of a Newsosaur, is not proposing a simple widget here, but what appears to be a sophisticated business coop.

The idea is to create a single, branded logon for multiple news products. After registering, readers would go about their normal surfing to favorite free news sites. Readers also can buy individual articles, subscriptions or bundles of content from sources that do charge.

The key to ViewPass seems to be a central database for tracking reader behavior to better target ads. That in turn would lead to bigger profits from advertisers happy with better results. By the way, targeted ads is nothing new; Mutter is just proposing a methodology for unifying the thousands of solutions already out there.

Under Mutter’s vision, ViewPass would be owned by multiple news organizations – broadcast, online and print – in a coop form. If ViewPass gets large enough, the news industry would finally have serious negotiating clout with advertisers, search engines and other service providers.

If you’re eyes are glazing over, I understand; this is biz side stuff instead of writing, reporting and broadcasting. But it’s important to remember: the problem with journalism is not on the editorial side, but the financial side.

Additional:

Alan Mutter’s Plan for Newspapers Is an Industry-Owned Ad Venture View Pass: Aiming not Only to Help Charge Online but to Increase Ad Revenue

Put Your Blog on Kindle!

Here’s an interesting idea: you can monetize your blog through the Kindle and compete with the big boys. Sure, you only get to keep about 30 percent of the revenue, but it is more than zero!

Because you cannot use your existing Amazon accounts, you must create a new one. The entire process took me 10-15 minutes.

New York Times Mulls Subscriber Pay Models

The New York Times hopes to choose a partial pay model by the end of June, reports The New York Observer.

One plan involves a meter that tracks page views or total word-count views. Once the reader hits a predetermined level, billing commences.

The other plan seems to be a premium model of some sort. Readers who donate become a member for access to premium or specialized content.

Without more details, it’s impossible to judge whether these plans have any merit, but it is interesting to learn that the Times is considering pay models again.