IVP Wiki - User contributions [en]

Blueprint-wrapup

2008-12-12T02:39:00Z

161.130.222.47: New page: =Summary/Afterthoughts on IVP Conference= By Emily Sussman <hr>The author is a Missouri School of Journalism graduate student.<hr> “Frustrating...daunting...confusing...

=Summary/Afterthoughts on IVP Conference=

By Emily Sussman 
<hr>The author is a Missouri School of Journalism graduate student.<hr>

“Frustrating...daunting...confusing.” These were some of the sentiments expressed at last week’s conference about the task of ‘Blueprinting the Information Valet Economy.’ So after nearly three days of roundtable discussions and presentations from a hand-picked group of media professionals and academics, did we get any closer to articulating an Internet service/product that doesn’t yet exist?

That depends. Did we decide what the IVP would look like or how it would operate? No; its conclusions, for the most part, stayed within the theoretical. A more appropriate question might be: did we decide what the IVP would do? The sum total of the discussions would seem to indicate yes.

Backing up a bit: the participants—chosen, appropriately, for their diversity of expertise—seemed to approach the impetus for the IVP differently. Was the IVP trying to create an opportunity (by offering a product that would make web surfing and e-commerce more efficient) or was it trying to fix a problem (by figuring out a commercial vehicle that would finance the current, economically unsustainable model for media content)? In other words, did the key to a ‘blueprint’ lie in creation or remediation? Or both?

The group kept drifting back to a question that seemed to encompass both of those starting points: what would it take to get people to pay for something they’re used to getting for free? The participants agreed that privacy, credibility, community and convenience were ways in which the status quo Internet experience could be improved upon. Discussions of existing disparate web services and sites such as the Information Card, PayPal, BaristaNet, and others proved useful in making those concepts more concrete, but the ‘blueprinting’ stopped short of how those would be integrated into one broad information-delivery system.

Also discussed: the concept of valuation. News content per se may not be commercially valuable, the participants agreed, but personalized news content that the consumer could control, even form a kind of secure, interactive “network” with, would be. Similarly, a random pair of eyeballs aren’t as valuable to an advertiser as a demographically tailored network of them would be. Yes, the participants agreed, there ought to be a way to marry those two facts in the form of the IVP—the more a user gives in terms of his or her demographic information, the more he or she will get in terms of personalized content and services. However, an important question was raised to that end: how could a service that purports to be ensuring privacy also function as a vehicle for the “invasion” of ads?

By mid-morning Friday, however, discussion had shifted sharply from talk of how the IVP would be staged to the importance of sustaining journalism as a civic space, a critical public service. There is a “cause-related aspect” to the IVP, the participants noted—namely, the survival of journalism itself—that might motivate media companies to coalesce behind an idea like the IVP.

Outside perspective might also be helpful in assessing the post-conference direction of the IVP. A brief and informal inquiry of some MU journalism students who read through the conference materials (blog, wiki, etc.) revealed deep confusion about how the IVP would function. How does it bode that even the ‘Internet Generation’ is unclear about how they could work with or benefit from this technology? Over on the blogosphere, commenters responded to a comprehensive review of the conference with an appreciative but critical eye, applauding the efforts to find a new revenue model for journalism while reminding us that the habit of “free” would be an extremely difficult one for users to break.

Lunchstorm-repj

2008-12-11T20:17:01Z

161.130.222.47: /* Representative Journalism: A report from the front in Northfield, Minn. / Fri. Dec. 5, noon, RJI Room 203 */

=Representative Journalism: A report from the front in Northfield, Minn. / Fri. Dec. 5, noon, RJI Room 203=
[[Image:Obremski-headshot.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Bonnie Obremski]]
Since September, a bold experiment in local journalism has been underway in Northfield, Minn., a small city about a halfhour south of Minneapolis which is home to two colleges, a handful of key businesses, and some tricky municipal issues. It's also the first venue for a test take at the future of community journalism -- "RepJ." Come meet "RepJ" fellowship reporter Bonnie Obremski, on Friday, Dec. 5, from 12 noon to 1 p.m. in RJI Room 200.
<hr>UPDATES: 
*[http://newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Blueprint-live-blog-repj Live Blog of the event]
*[http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/965157 Watch video stream of event (excellent audio, limited video)]
*[http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/post/7030/ Watch quality video stream (audio OK)]
<hr>
==Brainchild of Atlanta-area professor==
[[Image:lwitt.jpg|150px|thumb|right|Leonard Witt]]

"RepJ" is the idea of Leonard Witt, a journalism professor at Georgia's Kennesaw State University, outside Atlanta. Witt, a former newspaper editor and radio producer in Minneapolis, wanted to test the hypothesis that a geographic or topical community might be willing to underwrite quality journalism if the community was carefully consulted, primed and involved in the process.

Enter Bonnie Obremski. After two years as a full-time staff reporter covering a small town for a Massachusetts daily, the North Adams Transcript (circ. 6,800), Obremski, a recent Hampshire College graduate, was ready for a change. In August, she got in her car and drove to a state she had never been to before, to take up residence in Northfield and begin reporting -- via the web -- on Northfield.

Now one-third through a one-year fellowship, Obremski will visit Mizzou Dec. 3-5 to talk about the initial vision of RepJ and how it is working on the ground so far. What's it like to essentially parachute into a community and try to win the minds, hearts -- and pocketbooks -- of the citizenry through quality journalism? How do you navigate the spread between your perception of what the community ought to know vs. what it wants to know? What happens when your editor and boss is 1,500 miles away? Is this idea replicable elsewhere? How does a community react to an outsider?

==Obremski offers an overview==

Here's how Obremski described RepJ in an email:

"To envision a Representative Journalist, imagine having a local news reporter of your very own; one that lived in your computer, or in the corner cafe. You could observe that reporter collect and assemble data and even contribute to the reporting process yourself, online or in person.

"The Representative Journalism Web site is a place to find news briefs, features, and discussion that, together, aim to reveal something about the intrinsic nature of the city and its people. The format is similar to a blog, but the "RepJ" reporter brings the standards and ethics of traditional journalism to the forum.

The members of the Representative Journalism Project are still refining a model in which communities across the nation will hopefully invest. That model, however, will need to remain flexible in order to adapt to a city's or town's particular needs. Bonnie is looking forward to hearing more ideas from students, faculty and staff about the possibile ways Representative Journalism can grow."

==Some potential questions==
Here are some questions Obremski may tackle:

*Why should people be excited about RepJ?
*How is RepJ working right now in Northfield?
*What is the community's response to RepJ?
*What do we hope to achieve in the next few months?
*Which stories have worked? Which haven't?
*What is the relationship with the "LocallyGrown" bloggers?
*From virtual to real: What are the plans and practices for pre-story and post-story outreach?
*Are you having coffee klatches?
*How are you getting story ideas?
*How is this different from reporting for a daily newspaper?
*What is emerging as next steps to achieve funding or support?

==Background links==
*Audio podcast on the RepJ concept: http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/post/3141/
*RepJ story index: http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/post/category/representative-journalism-stories/
*Repj story feed: http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/post/category/representative-journalism-stories/feed
*Len Witt's RepJ background info: http://pjnet.org/representativejournalism/

Eleventhhour

2008-12-10T19:50:12Z

161.130.222.47: New page: =Eleventhhour.com: Feet on the Streets for Community Journalism=

=Eleventhhour.com: Feet on the Streets for Community Journalism=

Blueprint-content

2008-12-10T19:40:56Z

161.130.222.47: /* What's the problem we're trying to solve? */

=Notes: The content breakout, Thurs., Dec. 4, 2008 at "Blueprinting the Information Valet Economy"=
(thanks to Emily Sussman, scribe)
==What is the IVP?==
*PROPOSAL: A consumer has relationship with a home base. you move about the web, when you encounter resources you need to buy, activities with third-party are monitored, aggregated, reported back to the valet to improve it. What would that entity look like?
hope the Info Valet would present you with an easy and effective way to get to the information you need

*Groups will make a list of 5 bullet points what they think the Information Valet is
also, next steps

===GROUPS===
*bus models/legal/corp/marketing
*content/syndication
*advertising/privacy/demographics/ID

===CONTENT GROUP===
How would info valet be successful?
*Content can be served up in the same way behavioral advertising has been
*Googlenews vs. yahoo news

===What's the problem we're trying to solve?===
*Journalism can't pay for itself, people would like to have easier way to get information, customized
*A also need way to deliver that infromation to people who want it... better than google alerts could infromation be the currency?
 

Something to look at: http://www.bazaarvoice.com is intermediary between home depot and customers

*finding information you didn't know existed, also ease of use concept

*hard to separate advertising, business model from a conversation about content
**different strata of infromation, which you would or would not be willing to pay for
**more information is not the solution; targeted information is

*my question: ARE SEARCH/GATHER FUNCTIONS TAKING AWAY THE GATEKEEPING FUNCTION OF NEWS ORGANIZATIONS? To what effect?

===Group Thoughts===
*you might be willing to pay for the aggregate but not the individual article
*news moving away from product to process (west seattle blog)- they've engaged the community re: content
*where does the journalist come up in all of this in the role of community manager?
*who pays for the jorunalism that isn't commerically desirable, in a context where each piece of information can be monetized?
*something to be said for journalists hooking up with the consumer
*community becomes the ENGINE for the news organization
*journalists make sure that the concerns of the community are being addressed
 
if the community is the engine to journalism and democracy, how does that work with the context?
Maybe journalists need to invent a self-correcting mechanism--role of valet?

===*Role of SERENDIPITY in newsgathering===
*THE "NICHEING" OF NEWS
**are we heading towards the old model?
**news outlets sprouting up as needs arise, advertisers regarded as part of the community
*need to retain value, relationship, reputation

===Next step: define content, standardize value of content===
*Defining less-tangible things like readers' values
*Does the IV already exist in the form of the AP?

Blueprint-content

2008-12-10T19:40:03Z

161.130.222.47: New page: =Notes: The content breakout, Thurs., Dec. 4, 2008 at "Blueprinting the Information Valet Economy"= (thanks to Emily Sussman, scribe) ==What is the IVP?== *PROPOSAL: A consumer has relatio...