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Digitized Historic Newspapers: Topic Guides for Chronicling America

Friday, November 13th, 2009

The Chronicling America from the NEH and the Library of Congress is searchable database containing more than million digitized American newspapers pages (and growing) from 1880-1922.

Guides cover topics “widely covered” in the American press of the time. As of today (11/13/2009), there are 21 guides available with more expected soon.

Here are the titles of a few of the guides:

+ Annexation of Hawaii
+ Bloomer Girls (Women’s baseball)
+ Clara Barton
+ Comic Strips
+ Ellis Island
+ Jack Johnson vs. James J. Jeffries
+ Jack the Ripper
+ Patent Medicines
+ Presidential Election of 1896
+ Pullman Porters
+ San Francisco Earthquake, 1906

You can the find the complete list and register for alerts when new guides released here.

Posted in Digitization Projects, Media, Resources | No Comments »

So Cool! PressDisplay for the iPhone and Blackberry is Here

Friday, November 13th, 2009

I’ve noticed more and more libraries offering access to PressDisplay (part of NewspaperDirect) to their users. According to the company over 2500 libraries are subscibers.

If you’ve never seen it, it’s one cool database and eReader. It allows users to search and/or browse newspaper and magazine content (over a thousand newspapers on their publication day) and then read the material online In addition, users see the content the same way it’s presented in the paper. Same fonts, same pictures (color) and always of use charts and graphs. Other features include interactive tables of content, full graphics and text views, foreign language translation, text to speech audio, and many other features.

PressDisplay has several pricing plans including one (for personal use) that’s free and allows you to view two articles each day and unlimited access to the front page of over 1000+ newspapers and magazines. Institutional customers can choose corporate or professional plans. To learn more, take a look at this multimedia tutorial. It provides a good overview of many features and this list of the papers printed on-demand (another part of NewsPaperDirect or online).

But there is more. Two days ago, NewspaperDirect/PressDisplay introduced an iPhone/iTouch app along with a Blackberry app.

According to CNET:

+ The iPhone/iToucj app is free to download
+ Includes speech to text. Have the paper read to you

For the month of November, developer PressDisplay is offering seven free editions of any paper–basically, a chance to give the app a test-drive (test-read?).

After that, each paper will cost you 99 cents–about what you’d pay if you picked it up off the newsstand.

[Snip]

If you’re a voracious reader, you can sign up for one of two PressDisplay subscriptions: $9.95 monthly for 31 credits (one credit equals one issue, in most cases), or $29.95 monthly for unlimited content.

Those are the same subscription rates as the online version. We need to find out if subscribing to one service (iPhone) also gives you access to the other (online). My hunch is no, you would need to have two subscriptions.

That’s it. I’m off to download the app.

See Also: PressDisplay Blog Post

Posted in Information Industry, Media, Wireless Web and Search | No Comments »

Do You Watch Video on Your Computer? If You Do, Clicker Might Be For You

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Do You Watch Video on Your Computer? If You Do, Clicker Might Be For You
by Gary Price, Senior Editor
Note: The Founder and CEO of Clicker is my friend, Jim Lanzone. Jim was the CEO at Ask.com when I worked there. We haven’t worked together in 20 months.

Until today, Clicker was a “closed beta.” Today, the beta sign has been removed and everyone has access to the service.

For the past several months I’ve been using Clicker to find, access, and watch a very wide variety of video content (tv shows, music videos, etc.) from a large and growing catalog of content and providers. In fact, the company said today that their catalog of content has just increased with the addition of 30,000 on-demand streaming movies from Netflix and Amazon VOD. Excellent!

I’m very impressed with how comprehensive Clicker is and how easy it is to be watching, either something you’ve browsed for or a known program you’ve searched for, in just a few seconds. And talk about access points? Clicker has a lot of them and they are easy to find and use.

Bottom Line? Clicker is worthy of your attention (if watch or help people who view online video). Of course, no resource is perfect (especially on day one), I’ll share a few suggestions of things I would like to see at the conclusion of this post.

The Numbers
If you’re a numbers person, here are few about the content in the Clicker catalog
+ Over 400,000 Full Episodes from over 1,200 Sources in More than 1,200 categories.
+ 30,000 Movies from Netflix Instant Streaming and Amazon VOD (New Today)
+ 50,000 Music Videos from Over 20,000 Sources

The Home Page

The home page is clean and easy to navigate.
You can:
+ Search for videos by program name or topic
+ Browse by title
+ Browse by category (note the link here to view all categories.)
+ Browse beginning with type of media (tv, movies, “web originals,” and music)

Searching and a Search Results Page
Even before you click search, a box appears with direct links to what you might be searching for. A search for “SNL” immediately offered a direct link to complete programs and clips from Saturday Night Live. Again, this happens even before clicking the search button. Useful! In some cases this features offers “interesting” results that might not make sense until you visit the complete results page. For example, a search for “trains” shows a box for “Hogans Heroes” and CNBC’s Power Lunch. Huh? However, when you click through to the actual results page, you’ll see the words trains was in the title of a CNBC Power Lunch segment and also in the title of a Hogan’s Heroes.

This is a good time to point out that when you’re searching with Clicker, you’re searching metadata, not the actual transcript of the segment or show.

Here’s a search for “Seinfeld.” Let’s review some of what you’ll see on a results page.

+ At the top of the page a search box with direct links to category pages, a trends page (what are people watching), and a link to your playlist page (if you’re registered and logged-in) where you can “store” videos you plan to view. You can also connect your Clicker account to Facebook.

Next you’ll see page totals along with options to:

+ On what to display (all videos or online)
+ Filter by media

Moving to the right, options to sort your results list by relevance, popularity and airdate. The airdate option is useful when you have some idea of when a specific episode might have aired and need help flushing the video out of the results. The actual result list is what you would expect and also show logos for each program listed next to each entry or group of entries to make it identification easier.

Finally, on the right side of the page you’ll see the sources for all of the results. Each source logo is hyperlinked to a page for the sources. Think of it as the “x network” home page. Here’s the page for PBS. Very nice. In one location I can see all of the programs that Clicker has in its catalog from that network or other source. Of course, each show (e.g. Charlie Rose) also has its own page. Quick aside. Clicker has over 2300 episodes of the Charlie Rose show in its catalog. Wow!

On the right side of the page you’ll also see a list of shows that the Clicker database says are related and might also be worth a look. Finally, right below the episode “header” you’ll see a search box. This search option allows you to “search within” a show. Again, you’re searching metadata but if you want to know if Bill Gates has been a guest on one or more of the 2300 episodes of Charlie Rose, just enter his name in the search box and click search. Btw, Bill Gates has been on Charlie Rose more than 15 times.

Browsing

Not much to say here. It’s what you would expect. Browsing by category provides a bunch of data. Here’s the category page for documentaries. You’ll see sub-categories (in this case they are decades), featured programs, and a list of top episodes. If you begin browsing by media, the top-level page is what you’ve come to expect from Clicker–it’s full of interesting data. Here’s the movies page. Now, you can browse only movies by category, source, or title.

Viewing Content

So you’ve searched and browsed and now you’re ready to view a video. Here’s a page for the PBS program Frontline. Btw, notice how you can limit your search to the year the programmed aired on the left side of the page. This is available for many shows. Also, below and to the right of the search box you’ll see two buttons. One is labeled “All Episodes” and the other “New Episodes.” Again, if you’re a registered these button will tell Clicker to add all or just new episodes to your playlist. Yes, it’s a virtual DVR.

Now, select the specific program, click, and one of two things will happen. Either the program will begin playing or you’ll be given a direct link to watch the program elsewhere. In many cases you’ll be off to that network’s web site or a service like Hulu. It takes just seconds and the link Clicker provides is specifically for the program you’ve requested. You will not have to browse or search again.

Things I Would Like to See (No Pun Intended)

+ Keep a close eye on categories. I found a number of shows that just didn’t seem to fit in a category. For example, a TLC show about real estate being a documentary.
+ Content from C-SPAN. Even if it’s only online for a short time I would like to be able to find it with Clicker.
+ A constantly updated and browsable list of content as it enters the database
+ Local news content, both live streams of newscasts and recorded segments. Perhaps Clicker should talk with Newsy.
+ The ability to browse one page of all sources and then see what they offer. You can sort of do this now but you first have to search and you’re not getting a complete list of sources.
+ Transcript search would be great for all shows but for news, business news, public affairs, it’s very important and makes Clicker not only an entertainment resource but also a research tool.
+ A mobile version of Clicker. There is already a lot of content that will play on various mobile device. In fact, I watched Saturday Night Live on my iPhone last night.
+ Integration with various devices. I’m thinking of Boxee at the moment.

Final Thoughts

One thing that’s quite noticeable when browsing and searching Clicker is the amount of content that can be viewed online. Just a couple of years ago almost none of this content was available and this is just the beginning. In the next 5-10 years all material (say a new DVD) will be streamed directly to your home. You can see it with Netflix and others as the amount of on-demand streamed content grows. Networks will offer similar services. And of course, you’ll be able to watch this streamed content on your tv. On top of this, we’re going to see more content (including web only material) being made available by over-the-air networks, cable networks, and web only services.

Why am I mentioning this? Because Clicker is off to a great start to become the guide or perhaps better said, gateway, to all of this content. As I said earlier, the service offers numerous access points makes it easy (even for grandma) to watch her favorite shows on her computer (O.K., you have to give one lesson) but my point is that Clicker is easy to search, browse, find and perhaps the most difficult step, view the actual content, in just a few clicks.

Posted in Media, Technology and Internet | No Comments »

New Resource: Discovery Networks Launches News Site

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Direct to Discovery News

Top level news categories include: earth; space; tech; animals, dinosaurs; archeology; history; and human. A collection of nearly 400 videos is also a part of the site.

Discovery News also have a href=”http://twitter.com/Discovery_News”>Twitter feed and Facebook page. One RSS feed is also available. Search results pages include links to stories, relevant video clips, and shopping results, and in some cases material from other Discovery networks. We did notice that for some searches (perhaps because they don’t have enough content) there are a lot of ads on search results pages like this one for noise pollution.

From the Washington Post:

“We’re on a mission to make people smarter about the world around them,” said Miguel Monteverde, the site’s general manager. He has been with Discovery for two years; earlier in his career, he oversaw development of video content for AOL’s Web network.

As mainstream news publications trim their budgets and cut back on coverage of science and technology news, Monteverde said, the new Discovery site will seek to fill that gap. The site’s reporting will also be the central attraction of a new iPhone application launched by the company; priced at 99 cents, the Discovery News software became available at the iTunes store on Monday.

Direct to Discovery News

Source: Washington Post

Posted in Media, Resources, Science | No Comments »

Resource of the Week: Review the News Using Multiple Sources with Newsy (Beta)

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Resource of the Week: Review the News from Multiple Sources with Newsy (Beta)
By Gary Price, Senior Editor

Ed. Note: We posted the following item last weekend. After using Newsy for another week, we believe it deserves to be a Resource of the Week and is also deserving of your attention.

Here’s an idea we haven’t seen before. We were a skeptical at first but after a short time we can say we like what Newsy is up to. The current version of the service has been available since April, 2009 when it was relaunched. The Newsy iPhone app launched a couple of weeks ago.

The idea is as simple and and fresh. We’ve not seen anything similar available for free. Basically, take stories in the news and then bring together multiple video (and sometimes text-based) news reports from a number of sources and place them all on a single location. It’s not only a great way to see how a news story is reported but viewing the same story from different news organizations can potentially turn up facts from one source that the other source does not report on. By the way, the company likes to think to think of themselves as “news analyzer” and not a news aggregator. We think both phrases can work together Whatever you call Newsy there is plenty of value here.

Newsy can be useful in many situations. One potential use is helping to teach critical information skills by reviewing what is and is not reported on in a news story and how it’s reported. For example, how much time does each source give to the story.

But wait, there’s more. In addition to aggregating news reports on the same story, Newsy produces their OWN original video content summarizing the material from each source into a single report. For those who don’t want to view each source video one at a time, here’s a way to learn what each one is reporting in just a minute or two.

You can keyword search Newsy (you’re searching metadata) or browse by one of seven categories:

+ World
+ Economy
+ U.S.
+ Politics
+ Tech/Sci
+ Environment
+ Culture

You can also sort results by:

+ Most Popular
+ Most Recent
+ Most Commented
+ Highest Rated
+ Editor’s Picks

Let’s review how Newsy works:

1] Find a story, search or browse
We searched for “Obama” and got back 10 results.

2] Select the story; We chose “Obama Gives Donors Access to White House” from October 29, 2009 with a video summary that runs about three minutes.

3] After clicking the play we were taken to this page.

5] Immediately, Newsy’s own video summary begins playing.

6] Above the video box (which can be embedded on any web page) notice the direct links to the various news sources used in the summary.

7] In this case the sources are:

+ Fox News
+ The Hill (Text-Based)
+ CNN
+ The Washington Times
+ CBS
+ The Washington Post

A good and well-balanced selection of sources. If you click on any of them, a new window opens and the “source” video (or text) begins playing. Text sources link directly to the article. No more going all over the web to find the content.

Quick Hits

+ Newsy does not offer its services for every news story. That’s minor when you sit back and review what we think is real value in what they offer. Hopefully, they’ll be able to cover more in the future.

+ An iPhone version of Newsy is also available. It’s a free app. Here’s a link to get Newsy iPhone (via the iTunes App Store).

+ If you register for the site you can comment on any story.

+ A text transcript of each Newsy original summary is available. You’ll find it below the summary video box.

+ You can share reports using direct links to many social networks or e-mail a link to the selected story.

+ An RSS feed of stories is available as well as the Newsy blog.1

We hope that Newsy continues to offer a wide variety sources and a well-balanced set of sources for each story it covers. One thing we would love to see is a source list (we’re guessing the Newsy uses more sources than listed on this page) and perhaps the expansion of this page about how news stories are selected. Another page about the news source selection process would be useful. Finally, we would be very happy if you could view stories by source. In other words, show me all of the stories that use video from MSNBC, BBC, CBS, etc.

You can learn more about the company this STLToday article. For example, they are based in Columbia, MO and have a staff (as of a few weeks ago) of 19.

Many Thanks to Charles Knight over at AltSearchEngines for letting us know about Newsy.
Yesterday, Charles ran a post about Newsy focusing on the success of their iPhone app.

Posted in Media, News Search, Resources, Search News | No Comments »

Quick and Efficient: Review the News from Multiple Sources with Newsy (Beta)

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

You can keyword search Newsy (you’re searching metadata) or browse by one of seven categories:

+ World
+ Economy
+ U.S.
+ Politics
+ Tech/Sci
+ Environment
+ Culture

You can also sort results by:

+ Most Popular
+ Most Recent
+ Most Commented
+ Highest Rated
+ Editor’s Picks

Let’s review how Newsy works:

1] Find a story, search or browse
We searched for “Obama” and got back 10 results.

2] Select the story; We chose “Obama Gives Donors Access to White House” from October 29, 2009 with a video summary that runs about three minutes.

3] After clicking the play we were taken to this page.

5] Immediately, Newsy’s own video summary begins playing.

6] Above the video box (which can be embedded on any web page) notice the direct links to the various news sources used in the summary.

7] In this case the sources are:

+ Fox News
+ The Hill (Text-Based)
+ CNN
+ The Washington Times
+ CBS
+ The Washington Post

Quick Hits

+ An iPhone version of Newsy is also available. It’s a free app. Here’s a link to get Newsy iPhone (via the iTunes App Store).

+ If you register for the site you can comment on any story.

+ A text transcript of each Newsy original summary is available. You’ll find it below the summary video box.

+ You can share reports using direct links to many social networks or e-mail a link to the selected story.

+ An RSS feed of stories is available as well as the Newsy blog.1

You can learn more about the company this STLToday article. For example, they are based in Columbia, MO and have a staff (as of a few weeks ago) of 19.

Many Thanks to Charles Knight over at AltSearchEngines for letting us know about Newsy.
Yesterday, Charles ran a post about Newsy focusing on the success of their iPhone app.

Posted in Media, News Search, Search News | No Comments »

The Library of Congress Unveils API for Chronicling America Digitized Newspaper Database and Directory

Friday, October 30th, 2009

What follows is a post that might be of special interest to web developers, webmasters, site owners, or anyone who can work with an API (Application Programming Interface), It comes from a digitized collection of more than 1 million historic newspapers and a searchable directory of newspaper info. Even if you are don’t have the technical skills required, it’s possible you know someone who does and with their help you can partner to develop new resources, create mashups, etc. Btw, if you know of people who are able to work with an API, feel free to share this post with them.

First, some background.

We’ve posted about the CA program since the day it launched in March, 2007. The project is a joint effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize historic American newspapers. In addition to the digitized newspaper database CA also provides Chronicling America directory. It’s both searchable with a powerful interface (a great example of what good metadata can do) and browsable. The directory contains information about most American newspapers published from 1690 to today.

On June 16, 2009, we ran a story about CA reaching a milestone. CA had just hit the one million digitized pages mark. It has grown a lot since then. About five weeks ago we posted an item about CA adding more than 192,000 pages to CA. The media release said the size of the database at that time contained 1,442,000 digitized pages from 171 titles, that were published between 1880 and 1922.

Thanks for the info but what about the API (Application Programming Interface) ?

The following from the “About the Chronicling America API” web page:

Chronicling America provides access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages. To encourage a wide range of potential uses, we designed several different views of the data we provide, all of which are publicly visible. Each uses common Web protocols, and access is not restricted in any way. You do not need to apply for a special key to use them. Together they make up an extensive application programming interface (API) which you can use to explore all of our data in many ways.

The rest of the web page offers technical details about the API.

Programmable Web has also posted about the new API.

Here are a couple of highlights:

Search results are available on the web site appear with terms highlighted. The API does not have access to highlight information, but it does contain thumbnails. Each page has a permalink back to the Library of Congress site, which displays the page in a zoomable, draggable viewer similar to Google Map.

The Library of Congress is focused on making these public domain works widely available. As such, this is an API without any registration or key necessary. That’s pretty wide open.

Among the interesting technical details is that the API can return linked data via RDF. It’s good to see reference sites, especially government ones, support semantic web formats (there are now 20 APIs in our directory with RDF support.)

Sources: Library of Congress, Programmable Web
Hat Tip: Dan C.

Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Digitization Projects, History, Info Management and Retrieval, Media | No Comments »

CNN.com’s Makeover is Now Live, New Features Added

Monday, October 26th, 2009

One of the most popular news sites on the Internet, CNN.com, has a new look today. This video provides an overview of what’s new.

You’ll notice:
+ More Video
+ Personalization via CNN Profile Page Along with the Ability to “Follow” Stories Over Time
+ Play the CNN Challenge Game, See Who is the Biggest News Junkie

Another new feature is NewsPulse (Beta). Here you can quickly identify and then decide if you want to read and/or view the most popular stories on CNN.com.

You can select the most popular stories by time. From 15 minutes to 30 days. It’s also possible to limit by news category. Examples include entertainment, politics, travel, opinion, and money. Finally you can limit to only see stories or video.

Search continues to be powered by Google. You can sort results by date or relevance and only view stories or video. A separate search engine is available to access CNN iReport (content submitted by viewers) material.

Source: CNN

Posted in Media, Resources | No Comments »

New Online Database and Memorial: Journalists Killed While on the Job Since 1992 (Global)

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Access the Database Online

Access Data in Excel Format

From the Announcement

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has released a global online database of journalists who have suffered violent deaths relating to their work since 1992. The database is designed to memorialize those who have died and to call call for justice in unsolved cases.

Three Latin American countries, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, are among the 10 deadliest for murder victims, with Colombia in third with 39 cases.

The database is part of the CPJ’s Global Campaign Against Impunity, which seeks to pressure authorities to solve crimes against journalists, as no convictions have been obtained in 88% of all murder cases in the database.

The database provides
+ Options to limit by year and country

+ Interactive Map (Cursor Over for Number Killed, Double Click and Go to a Info Page for that Country)
After you double click, a page appears with pictures of those killed. Click on the image and you’ll find a bio about the person.

+ Deaths by Type (by country)

+ Deaths by Type (worldwide, since 1992

+ Journalists Killed With Complete Impunity since 1992

+ Statistical Analysis (Beats covered by victims, job, medium, gender, local/foreign, type of death, freelance, suspected source of fire, impunity

+ Methodology

Access the Database Online

Access Data in Excel Format

Source: Committee to Protect Journalists/Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas

Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Media, Resources | No Comments »

How to Read Articles About Health and Healthcare

Saturday, October 10th, 2009

How to read articles about health and healthcare (PDF; 189 KB)

If you’ve just read a health-related headline that’s caused you to spit out your morning coffee (”Coffee causes cancer” usually does the trick) it’s always best to follow the Blitz slogan: “Keep Calm and Carry On”. On reading further you’ll often find the headline has left out something important, like “Injecting five rats with really highly concentrated coffee solution caused some changes in cells that might lead to tumours eventually. (Study funded by The Association of Tea Marketing)”.

The most important rule to remember: “Don’t automatically believe the head- line”. It is there to draw you into buying the paper and reading the story. Would you read an article called “Coffee pretty unlikely to cause cancer, but you never know”? Probably not.

Before spraying your newspaper with coffee in the future, you need to interrogate the article to see what it says about the research it is reporting on. Bazian (the company I work for) has interrogated hundreds of articles for Behind The Headlines on NHS Choices, and we’ve developed the following questions to help you figure out which articles you’re going to believe, and which you’re not.

Source: Dr. Alicia White (Behind the Headlines) via Boing Boing

Posted in Information Literacy, Media, Search News | No Comments »

Reference Resources: EmmyTVLegends.org Adds Encyclopedia of Television to Its Library (Free)

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

From the Announcement:

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation announced today that EmmyTVLegends.org, the new web portal offering free, public access to the Archive of American Television video collection, has begun integrating the text of the definitive Encyclopedia of Television authored by Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC).

[Snip]

The MBC Encyclopedia of Television includes over 1,000 original essays from more than 250 contributors and examines specific programs and people, historic moments, trends and major policy disputes related to television. The full Encyclopedia is available at Museum.tv, and relevant articles can be found on EmmyTVLegends.org alongside interview videos from the Archive of American Television.

Here’s our ResourceShelf overview post about EmmyTVLegends.org (September 17, 2009)

Access the Full Text (Free) of the Encyclopedia of TV, 1st Ed.
A second edition is also available for purchase.

Access EmmyTVLegends.org

Source: Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation, Museum of Broadcast Communications

Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Media, New Websites and Resources, Reference Tools, Resources | No Comments »

Coming Soon: DocumentCloud, A Place to Access Primary Source Documents

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

If DocumentCloud can deliver on what’s being promised, one word for researchers, wow! Some might even call it a game changer for certain types of research and journalism. Read on!

From a Blog Post:

The DocumentCloud initiative – winner of this year’s largest grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation – has lined up some two dozen partners, everyone from Thomson Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, to the ACLU National Security Project, The National Security Archive, the Center for Investigative Reporting and many more.

DocumentCloud is a unique online resource – found at http://www.documentcloud.org – that will provide public access to news reporters’ original source materials. It will debut in a beta version by the end of this year.

Source: OpenCalais

Imagine being able to search across the New York Times’ cache of records on Guantánamo Bay detainees, the ACLU’s unrivaled set of documents on detention policy, Jane Mayer’s source material for her coverage of the CIA in The New Yorker, and The Washington Post’s valuable contributions to all of the above. That’s the promise of DocumentCloud…

Today [9/24] they’re also announcing an official partnership with OpenCalais, the powerful Thomson Reuters product that turns text into meaningful data. (For instance, it can distinguish between Poland, the country, and Poland, Maine, or group references to Guantánamo and Gitmo.) Material submitted to Document Cloud will be run through optical-character-recognition software, then OpenCalais and potentially other applications, with the goal of wringing as much value from them as possible.

Here’s a list of DocumentCloud Members (so far):

ACLU National Security Project, Arizona Republic, The Atlantic, Center for Democracy and Technology / OpenCRS, Centre for Investigative Journalism (City University London), Center for Investigative Reporting / California Watch, Center for Public Integrity, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, Gotham Gazette, The Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, The National Security Archive, The New York Times, New Yorker, MinnPost, MSNBC, Mother Jones, PBS NewsHour, ProPublica, St. Petersburg Times, Sunlight Foundation, Talking Points Memo, Voice of San Diego, Washington Post, WNYC

(more…)

Posted in Information Industry, Media, Resources, Technology and Internet | No Comments »

Personalized News: Portfolio.com Beta Tests bizWatch

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

If you like your business news “personalized” there are numerous fee and free tools to use. However, it’s likely you’re always on the lookout for new and hopefully better services. Here’s one that you might want to take a look at that exists in the free resource category.

Portfolio.com is the sister publication of BizJournals.com and they’re beta testing (and looking for feedback) on a new feature named bizWatch before they add the service to the many city/regional business journals Bizjournals.com offers.

bizWatch tracks 9,000 public companies with info from “thousands” of news sources.

You can find bizWatch on the upper-right side of the of a Portfolio.com web site, a little bit below the search box.

This “getting started” page offers a complete overview (with illustrations) on how to get rolling with up and running. According to this page, no registration is required to use bizWatch.

If you feel like sharing your feedback with bizWatch team, you can click this feedback link.

Source: American City Business Journals e-Newsletter

Posted in Business and Economics, Information Industry, Media, Resources | No Comments »

Three Free Newsletters from CQ (Congressional Quarterly)

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Along with their numerous fee-based services, the team at CQ provides three free e-newsletters that are delivered daily via e-mail. All you need to do is register (takes just a minute).

You can find the registration page along with sample issues of each newsletter here.

The three newsletters cover what you would expect from a publication named Congressional Quarterly. Links go to the source of each item. Most (but not all) newsletter sources can be accessed online for free. Two newsletters are delivered in the afternoon, the other in the AM.

1) CQ Midday Update

The latest news from the House and Senate floors, committees, and around Washington. Delivered every weekday at 2 p.m.

2) CQ Politics

Breaking political and campaign news, in-depth analysis of competitive races and expert insight on the latest developments. Delivered every morning.

3) CQ Homeland Security – Behind the Lines

A daily wrap-up of domestic and international homeland security coverage from hundreds of media sources. Delivered every weekday at 3 p.m.

Source: CQ

Posted in Government Documents and Political Information, Media, Resources | No Comments »

2009 Digital Influence in News and Politics Report

Monday, September 28th, 2009

2009 Digital Influence in News and Politics Report (PDF; 706 KB)
From blog post:

Never before have so many tools been available to analyze and clarify digital influence. The 2009 Digital Influence in News and Politics Report leverages these tools to measure the influence of those best-in-class media companies in the digital sphere.

Sparxoo evaluated over 100 news and politics media outlets (from the New York Times to the Daily Beast to NPR) in a comprehensive study of content, social and multimedia influence.

The Report crowns CNN as the #1 digital influencer, followed by The New York Times (a pleasant surprise for “The Gray Lady”). The Digital Influencer in News and Politics Report confirms and debunks many of the long-held media myths perpetuated by marketers, brand managers and other business leaders. It is through these findings that we can re-align the media compass to find tomorrow’s true north.

Source: Sparxoo

Hat tip: AB

Posted in Lists and Rankings, Media, Papers and Presentations, Source File, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Google CEO questions Murdoch’s online pay plan

Friday, September 18th, 2009

From the Article:

Publishers of general news would find it hard to charge for their content online because too much free content is available, the chief executive of Google Inc said on Thursday.

Speaking to a group of British broadcasting executives via video link, Eric Schmidt said he could, however, imagine niche providers of content such as business news succeeding in this area.

Schmidt was responding to an announcement by News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch that he could start charging for content online.

[Snip]

“So my guess is for niche and specialist markets … it will be possible to do it but I think it is unlikely that you will be able to do it for all news.”

New Resource: Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation Launches Web Portal Showcasing Television’s Greatest Stories

Thursday, September 17th, 2009