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

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

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, 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

From the Announcement:

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation has launched EmmyTVLegends.org, a new web video portal offering free, public access to the Archive of American Television, the most comprehensive videotaped interview collection of its kind. It features revealing conversations with more than 600 influential figures [2000+ hours] that have shaped the television industry from its inception to present day, and includes little-known anecdotes, unique perspectives, and eyewitness accounts from top names in TV.

This ambitious, new website has been more than a decade in the making. Since 1996, the Archive has conducted in-depth interviews with television’s biggest
stars, industry legends, and crucial behind-the-scenes players who make television magic. In 2005, the Archive began to release the interviews online
to the public, but until now there was no easy way to search and navigate the footage.

Access EmmyTVLegends.org
Advanced Search Interface

Much more in the complete announcement.

Source: Reuters
Hat Tip: AMIA Newsbriefs

Posted in Archives and Special Collections, Arts and Humanities, History, Media, Multimedia Search, Resources | No Comments »

Statistics: Online Video Viewing Continues Booming, Total Online Streams Up 41% From Last Year

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

From the nielsenwire:

The Nielsen Company today reported overall online video usage and top online brands ranked by video streams for August 2009. Year-over-year, unique viewers, total streams, streams per viewer and time per viewer were up, led by a 41 percent growth in total streams.

Top Online Brands ranked by Video Streams for August 2009 (U.S.)
1) YouTube
2) Hulu
3) Yahoo
4) MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
5) Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network
6) Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network
7) Fox Interactive Media
Disney Online
9) MTV Networks Music
10) Blinkx

A chart for unique viewers by online brand is also included.

Source: nielsenwire

Posted in Fast Facts, Media, Statistics | No Comments »

Clicker: A New TV Directory for Online Content Set to Debut on the Web

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Note: Clicker is currently in private beta. Stay current as the when the service goes live via the Clicker blog or Clicker Twitter feed. On the homepage, you can register to be added to the beta list.

From TechCrunch:

While there are no shortage of video search engines out there, Clicker believes its offering is superior because it creates a structured database of programming, organizing shows by things like network, genre, and show name. This type of data not only allows for better search results, but it allows you to browse content without having to do text-based searches, which you probably won’t be doing when television and future web-enabled tablets start to serve up this content. Clicker already has a deal with Boxee.

The goal is really to be the best search engine for video content. Clicker will point you in the direction of whatever you are looking for (and will do embeds if they’re available), but won’t serve up the videos themselves. They will also delve into surfacing content not explicitly produced for television, but is still high quality web video content. But they don’t want to be YouTube, which is cluttered with user-generated content. Clicker is going for a different market.

From the Clicker Blog:

Clicker aims to provide the most comprehensive, unbiased and user-friendly way to navigate what’s available (and just as importantly, what’s not) to watch online, where and when you can find it, and finally, what’s worth watching amongst your infinite choices. We have made it our mission to make it dead simple for you to find the RIGHT SHOW, RIGHT NOW.

To accomplish this, Clicker is a hybrid of many other kinds of information and entertainment sites: one part directory, one part search engine, one part Wiki, one part entertainment guide, and one part DVR. At the heart of it all is a massive structured database, created by a team of people from search, media, data and content management backgrounds.

From day one, Clicker has mapped more than 300,000 episodes, from over 5,200 shows, from over 1,200 networks – in addition to 1,200 movies (soon to be 14,000 movies with the addition of Netflix), and 50,000 music videos from 20,000 artists. All of this programming is organized by episode, show, network, media type, title, and artist, as well as over 1,000 categories and sub-categories.

Source: Clicker Blog / TechCrunch

Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Media, Multimedia Search, New Websites and Resources | No Comments »

Digitization: Chronicling America Illustrated Newspaper Pages from 1906 Added to LC Flickr Photostream and Other Chronicling America Links

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

From the Announcement:

The Library of Congress has added another year’s worth of historic illustrated newspaper pages to the LC Flickr photostream. The New-York Tribune Illustrated Supplement section of 1906, printed on Sundays, includes published images of signature events of 1906, including: construction of the Panama Canal, 3 weeks of coverage on the San Francisco Earthquake, the Chicago meat packing industry, storm devastation in Hong Kong and Alabama and more….In Flickr, you can tag it, add a note, share it….and even read more about it!

Access the Library of Congress Flickr Stream

Access the Chronicling America Database and Directory

Source: LC

Posted in Digital Preservation, Media | No Comments »