Tag Archives: Citizen Journalism

Janis Krums Puts Twitter To Work

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hudson-crash_drop-inWith Janis Krums having tweeted the first picture of the Hudson crash using his iPhone yesterday the opportunity that citizen journalism offers publishers is clear for everybody to see!

This is surely going to be one of the landmark tweets. It was sent from on board the first rescue ferry to come to the aid of the plane that crashed in The Hudson yesterday.

plane-tweet

A couple of weeks ago I commented on a post by Lewis Gray entitled “10 Predictions for 2009 In the World of Tech”

I would add that in terms of delivering news in real-time that citizen journalism and a croudsoursed delivery mechanism will me more closely integrated with main stream news sources. Services like NowPublic.com will really come to the forefront and start making more of an impact.”
Me on 10 Predictions for 2009 In the World of Tech By Louis Gray

I think this event demonstrates with dramatic effect how powerful citizen journalism can be and how events like this will bring it more praise as an incredibly important part of the modern news delivery mechanism.

Only two weeks into the year and a major news event with world wide interest has been captured first by a citizen journalist, there will be a lot more to come from citizen journalism in ’09!

Janis Krums was on MSNBC while still on the ferry and is set to appear on breakfast shows in the US today to hopefully spread the word about how he took his photo and how other people can get involved with the network in the same way he did.


I wait with iPhone in hand eagerly anticipating the opportunity to deliver news to the masses.

Links:
- Janis Krums Twitter page
- The Tweet he sent from the ferry
- The Twitpic entry of the plane in The Hudson

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Pilot ejects from Harrier crash. User submits video of it.

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drop-in-image_bbc.gifThe BBC have a nice piece of citizen journalism up today which covers the Harrier crash in the midlands. The Story contains a video as it’s lead which has been submitted by a witness on the scene.

The actual piece of journalism itself is not by the citizen but an BBC journalist. The article as a result becomes a collaborative effort between the citizen and journalist.

This video has probably been uploaded using the BBC’s upload system which can be found here. It’s also the sort of video that might well have been sent via ShoZu which I looked at recently.

While the image quality of the recording in this video is a bit lacking it adds a real life element to the story which makes it more engaging and meaningful for the users viewing it. I have to say I am slightly disappointed that the person who submitted the video has not been asked to give his/her account of the scene when they arrived instead relying on others statements. The submitter also has not been given any credit, which they always should be, it’s a motivator for others to do the same.

The video really brings the story to life while not having the ability to show professional footage of the scene. It’s also fantastically cost effective. I am sure this story will be shown on TV using footage taken from a helicopter which will probably cost thousands to film. If you have somebody on the scene with a camera phone it’s free (or probably £50 if the owner of the footage asks).

People pull their phone out all the time now to take pictures and videos of things they see happening around them. Those videos are being used more and more on TV and the Internet. The first instance of mobile video and pictures being used heavily was the 07/07 terror attacks on the London underground lots of people who were on the tube being evacuated pulled out their phone and recorded their experience.

Over the coming years I am sure collaborative citizen journalism will play an increasingly important role in the delivery of web based news as people become more and more familiar with it’s use they will want to become actively involved in its production and delivery.

Links:
- No Casual Operation: Inside a Citizen Journalism Newsroom
- CBS launches citizen journalism upload site
- Value of citizen journalism
- Citizen-Journalism Site Relaunches With New Features – nowpublic.com
- Bleacher Report Takes Citizen Journalism to Fox Sports

Sharing With ShowZu

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shozu.gifShowZu connects your mobile with a range of different sharing sites allowing the direct upload of pictures and videos to amongst others your YouTube, DailyMotion, Flickr and Facebook pages directly from your mobile device or from the desktop application which is based on the flexible Adobe AIR platform. Great if you want your facebook friends to see what you are up to on the go, but there are also more serious and exciting applications for ShoZu.

You can also send videos and pictures of news events directly to the BBC or ITV if you are near a major news event when it happens. It’s really easy to set up and is a really great way for users to actively engage themselves in citizen journalism.

The biggest motivation for users to take part in citizen journalism is perhaps that they can earn money from the clips they send in. Scoopt are ShoZu and looking to pay users for their efforts. Big Pictures are also bound to get on board with their ever unquenched thirst for celeb spot pics.

Systems like this will be pivotal in delivering the news in the future especially as camera phones become more developed with higher quality video cameras. Content providers will potentially have millions of citizen journalist in every corner of every country on the planet.

If news agencies and content providers can can leverage the potential of citizen journalism successfully tapping into this sort of technology then the possibilities to build large user groups who regularly submit content is massive especially if they have a monetary motivation.

Here is a video I uploaded directly from Nokia 6500 Classic to my YouTube account via ShoZu. Although this example is a bit dull it was done in no time and was really easy.

From my experience of ShoZu so far it’s going to make the process of being involved in citizen journalism and sharing content made on your mobile very easy which will no doubt get more people involved.