From Social to News
Social media news is getting into the traditional media narrative more easily and more often; http://eicker.at/NewsMedia2013
Tagged: Social Media News Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Everyone’s News
Everyone has become more adept at using digital technology and social media to distribute news; http://eicker.at/NewsMedia2013
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Gerrit Eicker
News Consumers Rely on Social Media
The extent to which news consumers rely on social media is rapidly evolving; http://eicker.at/NewsMedia2012
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Gerrit Eicker
Social Media News: Supplemental
Social media news consumers have not given up other methods of getting news; http://eicker.at/NewsMedia2012
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Gerrit Eicker
Facebook is Social Media News
Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Twitter, dominate the intersection of social media and news; http://eicker.at/NewsMedia2012
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Gerrit Eicker
Social Media News: Important, Not Overwhelming
Social media are important but not overwhelming drivers of news, at least not yet; http://eicker.at/NewsMedia2012
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Gerrit Eicker
Free News.me
News.me of NYT and Betaworks relaunches as a free Twitter/Facebook aggregator on the iPhone; http://eicker.at/FreeNewsMe
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Gerrit Eicker
News 2011
PEJ: The Year in News – 2011 was all about the economy (20%), Middle East unrests follow (12%); http://eicker.at/News2011
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Gerrit Eicker
PEJ: “The faltering U.S. economy was the No. 1 story in the American news media in 2011, with coverage increasing substantially from a year earlier when economic unease helped alter the political landscape in the midterm elections, according to The Year in the News 2011, a new report conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. – The year 2011 was also characterized by a jump of more than a third in coverage of international news, by a growing contrast in the content of the three broadcast networks and by a series of dramatic breaking news events that dominated coverage in ways unprecedented in PEJ’s five years of studying news agenda. – The biggest story of the year, however, was the economy. … PEJ’s The Year in the News is derived from an analysis of close to 46,000 stories produced from January 1-December 11, 2011 that were examined as part of the group’s ongoing content analysis of 52 different traditional news outlets from the main five media sectors, its News Coverage Index. The report also includes an analysis of the year in social media, based on the group’s weekly analysis of blogs and Twitter, the New Media Index. – The findings are also available for users to examine themselves in PEJ’s Year in the News Interactive, where users can delve into the data base by story, by broad topic and compare different news sectors and outlets with one another. … Another difference in 2011 was that the focus of economic coverage shifted. The story changed from being about taxes and jobs to being much more a story about government. Almost a third of the economic coverage in the last year (32%) was focused on the budget and national debt (heavily influenced by the debt ceiling crisis). The second biggest storyline was the effect the economy was having on state and local government (12% of the economy coverage). A year ago the two biggest themes were taxes and unemployment. – One new aspect to the economy story in 2011-the Occupy Wall Street Protests which began in September-proved to be the fourth-biggest storyline, at 5% of the overall economic coverage.”
PEJ – The Year of the Mega Story: “The biggest one-week story of the year was the killing May 1 of Osama bin Laden by Navy Seals. That week, the story filled 69% of the newshole, making it the biggest weekly story PEJ has measured since January 2007. The previous biggest story, (also at about 69%,) was the 2008 presidential campaign from August 25-31, 2008, when Democrats nominated Barack Obama at their Denver convention and John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his surprise running mate.”
PEJ – All News By Topic: “Besides looking at just the biggest stories of the year, one advantage of PEJ’s The Year in the News is that it can also categorize all the stories studied during the year by topic to measure the broader agenda-setting influence of the media. What topics got covered and what did not? This probes deeper patterns in news beyond what the biggest breaking news events tended to be. – The jump in coverage of overseas events not directly involving the U.S. (from 11% to 18%) was the biggest change in the year. There was a much smaller increase in attention to international stories that involved the U.S.-10% in 2011 compared with 9% in 2010.”
PEJ – The Year on Blogs and Twitter: “While blogs and Twitter are both called social media and have a similar basic function – the sharing of information and opinion – their news agendas differed markedly in 2011 (something we also saw in 2010). The data examined by PEJ reveal that Twitter users were more consumed by new digital technology and products. The blogosphere more closely followed the traditional press focus on current events and issues. – In effect, while similar percentages of adults in the U.S. blog and use Twitter (14% and 13% respectively), they use the two platforms differently. The conversation on Twitter has a distinct and narrower set of news priorities, at least as measured by the top five subjects each week. Bloggers are forging a hybrid news agenda that shares elements with both Twitter and the mainstream media. … The 2011 data indicate that, first and foremost, people use Twitter to discuss and disseminate news and reviews about the latest high-tech products. When added together, the three related topics-consumer news, technology and business-made up almost half the stories that made the top five list derived from our multiple tracking services in a given week. … Breaking down that conversation from topic to storyline, in 2011 the four most popular stories on Twitter were, in descending order, news about Facebook, Google, Twitter itself and Apple-all giants of the new information ecosystem. … Considerably less prominent on Twitter were the news events and issues that are fodder for newspaper front pages and cable talk shows. … In blogs, the conversation about government and politics, as well as diplomacy and overseas events, combined to account for almost one-third of the stories in the top five list in a given week. In addition, roughly another third (29%) of the dialogue on blogs was devoted to a series of public policy issues that included the economy, the environment, health care, education and others.”
PEJ – The Press and the Public: “In a year defined by a number of major news events, the mainstream media and the U.S. public often agreed on the most important stories. – According to data from the Pew Research Center for the People und the Press, three of five stories that generated the most public attention in a single week were among those that also received the highest level of weekly coverage from the press. … The story that generated the most public interest for the year was the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. The week of March 14-20, a full 55% of those surveyed said they were following events there very closely. … If there was a divergence between public interest and the media interest on these major stories, however, it could be found in how long the public was interested in something versus the media. In several cases, high levels of public interest outlasted media coverage as the press moved on to other events.”
PEJ – Top Newsmakers: “Barack Obama was the top newsmaker of the year. He was the primary newsmaker (meaning 50% of the story focused on him) in a total of 3,802 stories or 8% of the stories studied-the same percentage as a year earlier. Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan strongman who was deposed and later killed by rebels, was the second-biggest newsmaker by this measure, the focus of 1% of all stories studied. Indeed, three of the top 20 newsmakers last year were key Mideast figures who were either deposed or killed-Gaddafi, bin Laden (1%) and former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak (less than 1%).”
PEJ – The Cable Difference: “With different audience bases, different sibling networks and different styles, the three main cable news channels [MSNBC, Fox, CNN] also had different definitions of what constituted news in 2011. Some of the distinctions between the three main channels, in other words, are in story selection, not only style or tone. – The weakening economy, for instance, was a much bigger story on MSNBC (30% of the airtime studied), a sibling of business channel CNBC, than anywhere else. It received the second-most attention on Fox (21%), which also has a sibling channel focused on financial matters, Fox Business. The economy was a much smaller story on CNN (14%).”
PEJ – Network News Agendas: “Traditionally, the three broadcast networks [ABC, CBS, NBC] have not had marked variations in their selection of news. That appears to be changing. In 2011, one network appears to differentiating itself with a more hard news orientation. – CBS, which publicly has announced that it is trying to define itself with a more hard news approach, devoted almost one-third of the airtime studied on its evening newscasts (30%) to two major stories-the economy and Middle East unrest-over the course of the year. That compares with 24% on the ABC’s World News Tonight and 23% on The NBC Nightly News.”
PEJ – The PBS Difference: “An examination of 2011 coverage also reveals some ways in which the PBS NewsHour differs in its agenda from the rest of the media, particularly in what viewers can find elsewhere on television. – The most striking difference is that the NewsHour offered more than one-third more coverage of international events over the last year than the media overall, including all other forms of television news (cable, morning and network evening). In total, 39% of the time on the NewsHour was devoted to foreign events and U.S. foreign policy, compared with 28% in the media sample generally, 23% on cable news, 24% on the network morning news shows and 24% on the network evening broadcasts.”
PEJ – A Year in the News Interactive 2011: “Follow the steps below to select among media sectors and news coverage categories. The data are based on nearly 46,000 stories analyzed in PEJ’s News Coverage Index for the year: 1. Choose which sectors interest you… 2. Choose subjects that interest you from one of these four categories…”
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus + Google News
Google News: Spotlight section will include articles that have been publicly +1’d by contacts; http://eicker.at/GoogleNewsPlus
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: Over the past few months, myriad sites across the web [including Google News] have adopted the +1 button to help start conversations. But there hasn’t been an easy way for signed-in users to see what news articles your friends are enjoying – until now. – Starting today, the Spotlight section will sometimes include articles that your Gmail contacts and people in your Google+ circles have publicly +1’d. You can see their profile pictures and click through to their Google+ profiles, just like on Social Search. And of course you can +1 the stories too, expressing your opinion and optionally sharing with your circles.”
SEL: “If you are logged in while using Google News and your friends or contacts have used the Google +1 button to like the stories in your Spotlight section, that information will show up in the Spotlight section near the article. It will even let you click on the name of your friend/contact to see their social profile on Google.”
RWW: “Yesterday, Google converted Google Chat to be based on G+ circles rather than email addresses. Earlier this month, the +1 button came to image search. YouTube and Google Reader have both gotten complete G+ makeovers, though YouTube’s hasn’t rolled out yet. – Google Web search has treated public G+ posts as search results since soon after the social network launched. Google is insisting upon making its new social layer a pervasive, personalized filter for the whole Google experience.”
VB: “Since it’s eventually going to be part of everything Google does on the web, some have determined Google+ usage to be practically unavoidable, or at least inevitable. – ‘We think of Google+ as a mode of usage of Google,’ said Google executive Bradley Horowitz in a recent interview with VentureBeat. – He went on to say that the Google+ features around other Google products will serve as ‘a way of lighting up your Google experience as opposed to a new product. It’s something that takes time to appreciate, even internally. It’s easy to think of Google+ as something other than just Google, and I think it’ll take more launches before the world catches up with this understanding.‘”
Gerrit Eicker
Twitter Stories
Twitter launches Twitter Stories: testimonials explaining how tweets impacted users; http://eicker.at/TwitterStories
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Gerrit Eicker
Twitter: “Today we’re launching the first in a series of Twitter stories. Read about a single Tweet that helped save a bookstore from going out of business; an athlete who took a hundred of his followers out to a crab dinner; and, Japanese fishermen who use Twitter to sell their catch before returning to shore. Each story reminds us of the humanity behind Tweets that make the world smaller. – Help us uncover more stories. Tell us how you or someone else have used Twitter in an interesting way. Submit your story by mentioning @twitterstories or by using the hashtag #twitterstories. Include a link to a photo or video that helps illustrate your story to the world. Each month we’ll curate a selection of profiles to share. – Follow @twitterstories to get the latest stories or check the site every month for a new collection.”
TC: “Last year, Twitter debuted a marketing campaign, called Twitter Tales, that showcased ways in which users interact with the microblogging platform. Today, the company is launching a similar campaign, called Twitter Stories, which seems to show interesting Tweets and ways the site’s users are communicating via the platform. … User stories are always a good marketing tool. Facebook launched a similar marketing campaign around their 500 million users milestone last year, called Facebook Stories. Google also launched Google Stories, which collects stories from users sharing tales about how Google effected their lives.”
TNW: “Twitter is fast becoming an integral part of the way that its users communicate and has proven its ability to act as a fantastic channel to receive information quickly. The US Government has even recommended that citizens use Twitter to contact one another during emergencies instead of traditional cellular or phone lines, which can get congested.”
HP: “Perhaps in an attempt to woo a more mainstream audience, Twitter has notably chosen to highlight several well-known celebrities and brands in the stories it picked, including Roger Ebert, Ochocinco, Queen Rania Al Abdullah, and Burberry.”
WP: “In its five-year history, Twitter’s been used for inane updates on what was breakfast, as a vehicle for real-time news and as a way to spread revolutionary social ideas. On Tuesday, the service launched a new site, ‘Twitter Stories,’ to share a handful of stunning ways that the micro-blogging service has made a positive impact on people’s lives.”
CNET: “Tales at a new site called Twitter Stories range from movie critic Roger Ebert‘s use of the service after he lost his voice, to a man who found a kidney donor after tweeting “Sh*t, I need a kidney,” to a man who saved his mother’s bookstore with a tweet, to pro football player Chad Ochocinco treating 100 followers to dinner with a surprise invitation delivered across the service.”
Wir sprechen Online. 
News.me: “News.me is a small team based out of betaworks in New York City. We build applications that improve the way people find and talk about the news. – We have an iPhone app, an iPad app, and a daily email that deliver the best stories shared by your friends on Twitter and Facebook.”
News.me: “News.me for iPhone delivers the must-read news from your friends on Twitter and Facebook. Reading the news has always lent itself to a social experience: from the breakfast table to the water cooler to the classroom. But on the social web we’re no longer just ‘readers’ – we are all publishers, curating and distributing links to our own audience of friends and followers. – Yet when it comes to finding news on Twitter and Facebook, we hear the same complaint over and over again: ‘there’s too much stuff!’ At News.me, we want to help people wade through the chatter to find the news that truly matters. – News.me for iPhone analyzes all the links shared by your friends to find only the most relevant news for you. News.me is smart – it does the hard work of finding the right news so that you don’t have to. Each article is then presented in a beautiful stream that displays the publisher, headline, photo, and most importantly, what your friends are saying about it.”
RWW: “News.me launched its free iPhone app this morning, which introduces Facebook integration, a saved offline reading list that syncs with the iPad app and Instapaper, and new, simple social dynamics of its own. It digests the links shared by Twitter and Facebook contacts, checks Bit.ly for their popularity, and presents a list of the top news stories in a clean, readable environment. … I hate ‘It’s-the-this-of-that’ tech news stories, but I hope this comparison is meaningful: What Instagram is to photos and Path is to personal moments, News.me is to news. It’s a one-thumbed way to connect with people over the news of the day.”
GigaOM: “News.me has an interesting history: It started as a skunkworks project inside the New York Times – an attempt on the part of a couple of NYT developers to come up with a way of filtering Twitter based on a user’s social network. The team formed a partnership with the New York-based incubator and venture firm Betaworks (creator of services such as the Bitly link-shortener and Chartbeat) and then News.me was eventually absorbed into Bitly and the New York Times wound up with shares in the company.”
TC: “A bit unusually, the part of the app that you’ll use first may actually be the least interesting. In some ways, the new app is just a redesign of what News.me was already offering through its iPad and email products – a list of news stories, pulled from your Facebook and Twitter streams, then curated based on signals from Twitter and bit.ly, and presented with the context of the initial tweet or Facebook comment. … Although the company has been focused on the iPhone recently, and even though the iPad app has been less successful than the email digest, it sounds like Levine plans to add the new features to the iPad eventually.”
AT: “The goal isn’t to just be yet another news service – the idea is that you’re more likely to care about what your friends and family are sharing (compared to a standard firehose of news coming from every direction), which is why you might want to use a service that analyzes your feeds for shared stories. ‘We’re bringing you the best of your Twitter and Facebook in a streamlined interface, along with a venue for you to converse about news with your friends,’ News.me developer Robert Haining told Ars on Thursday. … The News.me iPhone app also offers a Reading List feature, which is pretty much what you would expect. Like Safari’s Reading List or even Instapaper itself, you can mark stories from your News.me feed to read offline.“