If you haven’t noticed, social media has become an integral part of news reporting. By integral, I mean they can’t stop talking about it. But as of now, social media is far from being fully utilized in journalism. For the past year I’ve worked for an online news company, I was surprised to see much of the great content from YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook had gone unnoticed by mainstream media.
I can’t remember how many times we poked fun of a particular news anchor from a major news network for his Twitter reporting style. All he did was pointing the camera at his screen and start reading other people’s Tweets. If you watch “How I Met Your Mother”, think Sandy Rivers. The resemblance is uncanny.
Theoretically, technology has made it possible for anyone to become a journalist. Anyone can write a news article and publish it online, and if he’s close to the scene, he might even have exclusive photos or videos that mainstream networks don’t. But in reality few of us would be interested in writing a news story. Instead, we would much rather share photos and footage, because the process is simple and relatively effortless.
Using Social Media for Photos and Videos
Aren’t you tired of the same photos from AP or Getty Images? If you have access to them, everyone else does. Sometimes you can find surprisingly good footage shot by witness at the scene.
Note that the user might not have knowledge of what’s happening there. Choose broad search terms to avoid filtering out quality content. For example, for a school lock down incident, you can search for the school name, neighborhood, street names, or simply the word lock down (or “lockdown” and other variations). I’ve had success finding out what happened in a school lock down incident through the Tweets of students in the building.
If you are searching for footage from a foreign country, try searching in their language. Chances are these are the same footage the big guys will be using.
Social Media Platforms
Twitter is usually the fastest for first-hand reports and photos. It can take up to hours before footage show up on YouTube, because users may need to find a computer to upload their video. Photos on Flickr may take the longest to show up, because users need to transfer photos from their cameras to a computer before they can upload.
Twitter
For breaking news, Twitter is your best bet for first-hand reports and photos. Many Twitter users own iPhone, Blackberry, or other types smart phones that enables them to send reports and photos at the scene.
An effective way of finding photos on Twitter is through PicFog. Technically the photos are hosted by different service providers, but PicFog pools them together for easy browsing. Twitter users can upload videos using services such as Twitvid, but as of now they are uncommon.
Sometimes you can find photos of celebrities through their family and friends. Try searching for their first names because friends rarely refer to each other by their last or full names.
YouTube
When searching for YouTube videos, use broad search terms as well, and sort videos by uploaded dates. Be cautious not to pick copyrighted videos for your coverage. Some news agencies do upload their video footage to their official YouTube channel, and in this case, you are free to use them.
Flickr
Similar to YouTube, a good idea is to sort photos by uploaded date and search by location. Flickr is an excellent source for high quality photos. Since most Flickr users are amateur photographers, if you ask nicely they may grant you the permission to publish their photos for little or no fees.
Facebook
A Facebook fan page search may turn up interesting discussions worthy of reporting. Many celebrities, organizations, and businesses have set up Facebook fan pages. It’s usually the place where you can find the people who are affected by or feel strongly about the incident.
The Vancouver “Olympic Line” started running today on Thursday January 21, 2010. Since I got a day-off, I decided to hop-on before it’s taken over by tourists.
The Olympic Line in Vancouver is shorter than I expected. The ride takes less than 5 minutes over the 1.8 km track. As a demonstration project, the vehicles run only from Granville Island to the Olympic Village Station. The two Bombardier “modern streetcars” run on the historic railway. Personally, I wouldn’t call the vehicle a “streetcar” since it runs on good-old-fashioned rail road, but it is “modern” alright. The vehicle is not wider than a regular bus, but its interior is certainly nicer than its on-road counterparts.
For selfish reasons (living few blocks away from Granville Island, and my fascination with things running on tracks) I really hope the city would expand the line to cover Downtown areas. Streetcars allow you to see the city, not just getting from point A to point B. The being said, the potentials of streetcars are not fully developed in the demonstration project because it covers mostly residential areas. I believe streetcars can benefit smaller local businesses and give residents opportunities to explore the city.
The Olympic Line will run until March 21. It runs 18 hours a day, starting at 6:30 a.m. to midnight at 12:30 a.m.
Several years ago, I went to Japan with family for our Christmas vacation. After landing, we waited in a line before the custom. In front of me was a black man. Bored, I started a conversation with him. Naturally the first thing I asked was where he came from.
Sri Lanka, he replied. Mind you this happened when I totally sucked at politics and geography. I asked where it was. It’s an island beside India, he said. Still puzzled and frantically trying to form a mental map of India, I asked, is it part of India?
* * *
Last year I was in Europe for my exchange program. I visited cities in different countries, and what never change were the souvenir stores. Store owners or employees always approached me, eagerly tried to start a conversation. My experience can be broken down to 4 scenarios:
Shout out konichiwa
Ask me where I came from. Taiwan Ohhh… Tailand…
Ask me where I came from. Taiwan Ohhh… that’s China right?
Ask me where I came from. Taiwan Ohhh… (awkward silence, presumably confused)
* * *
It turned out the dude from Sri Lanka was a cool guy. He simply said no, and told me a little bit about what was happening there. On the other hand, I almost always get offended somehow when others mistaken my identity.
Come to think of it now, it’s quite unreasonable to expect everyone to understand my cultural background. After all, lack of knowledge is hardly an offense. We don’t grow up to be cultural experts. And yes, to some people Asians all look alike, the same way I thought Caucasians all look alike when I first came to Canada.
Nowadays everyone can get offended by anything. I can’t help but wonder if ignorance is stigmatized in our open and tolerant society. I might unintentionally offend someone for something I don’t know about, so the safest thing to do is to shut up and stay away. This is not the model for foster mutual understanding.
What I am trying to say is that we shouldn’t take offenses so easily, myself included. It’s a different story if someone is being a racist. For other innocent misunderstandings or words of ignorance, take it easy and teach them something. Or just pity the fool!
I feel like today is the right day to start writing again.
After surviving from 6 months of chaotic lifestyle in Taiwan, I am back to Vancouver. When I was in Taiwan I found it impossible to sit down and write about anything. Maybe it was just an excuse, I don’t know. Now that I’m back, finally have enough sleep, sushi, and sunshine I longed for. It’s time to start doing the things I promised myself I would do.
I’ll be writing shorter pieces (about 100-200 words in length), because, well, I hate writing long posts. I usually end up researching forever because they are never good enough to publish. Plus, no one wants to read long posts anyway. I actually get bored reading my what I wrote..
Just watched the TED talk from Alain de Botton. He said so much in the very limited time frame. It’s worth watching twice.
Recently submitted my proposal for the UBC Alternative Energy X contest. I am not sure if this is what they are looking, because my plan is pretty boring from a PR perspective, and its implementation would be an administrative nightmare. Nevertheless, I think it’s what UBC and other major institutions need:
Vision for a Net Positive Energy and Water Campus: Through an Incentive Program for Maximizing Resource Efficiency
UBC is in desperate need of an overarching institutional framework that creates incentives for efficient and disincentives for inefficient resource usage. Rather than focusing on ad hoc improvement projects, it is more important to establish a system that generates innovative ideas everyday, not just when there’s a contest.
The problem is the broken chain of accountability. With the cost of fossil fuel, carbon offsets, and carbon taxes piling up, UBC will very soon pick up a sizable tab for its share of environmental responsibility. However, I doubt most students and faculties will make significant changes because neither incentives nor disincentives are in place. The stick and carrot stop at UBC as a collective, not passed down to departments, faculties, and individuals as it should. An incentive program can fix this by distributing the share of responsibility effectively and align interests in every level. The result is an institutional framework that focuses on maximizing resource use efficiency.
How such program could work in UBC:
UBC sets its annual targets for a number of resources, which may include natural gas, electricity, water, waste, and etc.
Allocate the quotas for each building based on the number of people it serves.
Track the building’s heating, electricity, water, and waste generation on weekly basis. Produce reports showing if it is below or exceeding the quota.
At the end of the year, buildings or departments that operate below the quota receive a portion of the saved money from fuel, offsets, and taxes. The money could be spent on buildings upgrades, distributed within departments, or even in the form of tuition reduction. On the other hand, those that use resources inefficiently could face budget cuts or tuition increase.
Efforts on the reduction of emission and energy consumption by students within or outside of the campus could be counted as credits.
Under this system, departments, faculties, and students are obligated (not just encouraged) to take proactive roles because their efforts are measurable (through weekly usage report), comparable (against the targets and other buildings), and would directly affect them. Since the key indicator is the resource use efficiency (measured in, for example usage / person hour), it takes into account building size and user number, and gives a comparable ratio throughout the campus. While some buildings are built more efficient than others, it is unfair to give them preferential treatments. It should be up to the users to come up with plans for decrease consumption or increase usage. For example, a classroom is twice as efficient when it is used by 20 people instead of 10.
While I believe the incentive program will produce innovative solutions for efficient resource use, there are several specific improvements that could be adopted immediately.
Smarter heating control: computerized heating control that allows automatic shutoffs when a classroom or building is not used. It could be determined through motion sensors or course schedule. Alternatively, timers could be installed that automatically shuts off heater.
Smarter lighting control: similar to heating, lights from unused sections of a building should be shut off automatically, through motion sensor, course schedule, or timer.
Upgrade insulation for windows especially to minimize escape heat.
Install two levels flush toilets, collect rainwater for plant operations
For campus residences, make utilities non-inclusive and send out usage stats. People will be more aware of their consumptions.
Leverage talents within campus for improvement projects.
Financial support for paying upgrade costs in installments
With a proper incentive program in place, UBC could foster a culture of active participation in innovation. The program would not only encourage great ideas but more importantly, great results.
Before anything could be done, we need more awareness. For the meantime, tell the clerk that you don’t need a bag. It’s more of a habit rather than necessity.
Writing a public blog about your private life can be frustrating. It’s almost inevitable to have some uninvited guests digging through your blogs/facebook/twitter/plurk if you don’t watch out.
I thought of writing this post before but worried that I would come off as an obsessive stalker. Well, I still don’t know how to get around that, so I am already making a sacrifice for offering my experience.
Disclaimer: This post is written purely for educational purposes. I do not personally participate in cyber-stalking, except out of necessity, like when answering favors or doing research or in the rare case when I am really really bored.
Here are some points to watch out for:
Crank up privacy settings on social networking sites, Facebook especially.
Don’t publish anything you don’t want your potential stalkers to find out.
If you think your potential stalker can’t find your blog, try Google your name or the user IDs you most frequently use.
Make your blog private, so that only those who are invited may enter.
Make your blog search engine unfriendly, so that it wouldn’t come up in search engines. WordPress can do this, but I don’t know about others.
Don’t publish your blog address anywhere online. It’s quite often neglected. This includes on any profile pages and blog comments.
Use a new online alias so that your blog comments won’t show up if someone searches your name.
Watch out when leaving your email address. This is another identifier.
Tell your friends not to quote your posts. If someone is looking for your blog, she might also be digging your friends’ blogs.
Make sure the web pages you link to don’t have trackbacks, otherwise your URL will show up there.
Avoid posting hypertext links if you are bad mouthing someone. Your web address will come up as the referrer if the page you are pointing to has tracking function. The author might come back to see what you are saying. Make the link plain instead.
What did I miss?
[In case you are still wondering, that's my elbow.]
I have a confession to make, for I have sinned. I took a 13 hrs flight across the Pacific Ocean to Taiwan.
I find it difficult, even unrealistic, to convince anyone not to fly, myself included. In most cases, there is simply no reasonable alternative other than not going. I bet even the environmental activists fly to the Amazon to defend the rainforests. Sure they fly to defend the nature, and maybe their efforts would have offset the CO2 their flights emit, but how about the parents who take their kids to a trip of their lifetime? or a girl working abroad for years decides to go home for Christmas? or a sales manager whose family depends on his income has to fly to a trade show?
My point is that, everyone has a good reason to fly. Even for someone who cares about the environment, the value of flying usually exceeds the cost of the fare plus the guilt disincentive.
While I believe it is futile to persuade people not to fly, a few things I hope to see:
Airlines integrate carbon offsets plans. Make it mandatory, opt-out, or at least available for opt-in. If flying is a necessary sin of modern life, please have means of redemption ready. Passengers can buy offsets as an option with the ticket, or they could be sold on-site (well packaged of course).
An increase in price will lower demand. Perhaps a tax that goes toward technological innovation or public improvement to offset emission. People will consider the alternatives if the price isn’t right, like picking a closer destination or a mean of transportation that was more expensive without the tax. Most will still fly, but at least part of the fare will go toward offsetting the emission.
I’m not a climate scientist, use a unit I can understand. Only the hardcore activists understand what “15 tonnes of GHG” means. I still have to Google to get an idea. Tell me how many km of driving equivalent, or how many trees I need to plant to offset it (forget the technical details for now). The point is to get people thinking.
The only places I see people using phone directories are in movies. They are usually used in interrogation scenes.
I absolutely hate getting them every year. They waste trees, energy, water, human resources, and my time. Even if you are morally ambivalent toward phone books, I’m sure you can agree that in the internet age, they are useless, heavy, and a pain in the ass to get rid off.
Get my point?
I am deeply disturbed that they keep coming every year as jumbo sized junk mails. So I decided to speak up. I emailed the Yellowpages, and actually got a reply the next morning. Here is the conversation:
Title: About the Thick Phone Directories I Get on my Doorstep Every Year
Hi,
I live in Vanocuver, and I get phone directories from you guys every year. It’s very nice of you to deliver them to my doorstep every year, but the truth is, I never use it, period. Whenever I get it I worry about recycling it. I know it’s printed on recycled paper and you guys try to make it as environmentally friendly as possible, but I think not printing them is the most environmentally friendly way to go, at least not for people who don’t use them. Furthermore, it’s potentially an explosive PR issue if environmental groups decide to pick on you guys. I know in Norway a few years back it became a huge national issue that the law mandated the companies to switch to an opt-in model.
Hope you guys can consider it. Oh and please please please don’t send me a canned reply. I absolutely hate that because I have no idea if my message has been read or not. Just something simple would be great, something human.
Thanks for your time,
Scott
Here is the reply:
Title: RE: About the Thick Phone Directories I Get on my Doorstep Every Year
What I can definitly do is pass your information on to marketing and our environmental group just to track public requests and concerns and thank you very much for taking the time to pass on your ideas.It is sort of a mixed bag as some people love the idea of strictly CD version and no paper, but then certain groups of people really do not like using the computer and prefer the book. If there is anything else please feel free to contact me.
So far not very interesting, but I like it that they deal with my email very efficiently.
*****
Note: I published this few months ago on my other blog. I figure this post is worth migrating. I think we need more people write them about this. Just found a Facebook group called The Yellow Pages Must Be Stopped! Funny how they use the same image as I did.
I talked about my annoyance toward fake personal junk mails, but I actually hate junk mails in general.
Junk mails are very resource intensive. In the US alone, every year 100 million trees are harvested to make them, and 44% of the time they go straight into trash (source: ForestEthics). This is equivalent to putting an additional 6 million cars on the road (based on the 17 trees per car figure, perhaps an underestimate). It’s ridiculous that by having a mailbox, we involuntarily become part of their wasteful marketing practice.
The solution for most people is actually quite simple according to the Red Dot Campaign. Just put up a sign that says “No Junk Mail”, and you can block most of them (in Canada). I wonder why people aren’t doing it if it’s so simple? My guess is that people are either not aware of this option or not enthusiastic to act on it. After all, sometimes coupons for deliveries do come in handy. You can buy stickers from Red Dot Campaign’s website or print them yourself, but I doubt people would do so unless they are as pissed as I am (pissed enough to blog about it).
I wonder if environmental groups have considered sending out those “NO JUNK MAIL” stickers? Yes, send it out like junk mails. Besides the ideological conflict and the one-time cost, I don’t see why not. I think it will be very effective because it’s simple and effortless for recipients. Just stick it on your mailbox and you are good to go.
I don’t know for sure, but maybe this will work. It could be tested first in one neighborhood, and then monitor the adoption rate a few days later.
If you really can’t live without those delivery coupons, I’m sure when enough people opt-out, they’ll find other ways to give you discounts.
Personally, I’m still trying to catch our postie in the morning because I live in an apartment building with mail slots (shown in my previous post), and I can’t find a spot to show the sticker. I’ll report back.
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