Tag: Technology

Comment reconsideration

After reading your public comments and private e-mails, I’ve decided not to do anything about comments to Media Nation in the immediate future. I’ve seen several good reasons not to require people to register with Blogger, including:

  • At least one correspondent whose judgment I respect thinks Blogger’s terms of service are a legal nightmare. I’ve decided not to worry about it, but I know others may differ.
  • Another tells me that requiring registration won’t even eliminate blog spam — a big incentive for making the change.
  • At least one third-party solution that I briefly investigated, Haloscan, doesn’t seem to do much.

Now that the semester has begun, I’ll probably let things continue unchanged until spring. After that, I plan to investigate a real third-party solution or possibly a switch to WordPress, which apparently has better comment tools.

Toward less anonymity

I’m probably going to require people to register with Blogger before posting comments to Media Nation. I’ve long been uncomfortable with anonymous comments, but have held back from taking this step because most users, after all, will still be anonymous. Here’s why I’ve changed my mind:

  • Having a Blogger identity at least gives you some sort of public persona — you’re not anonymous so much as you are pseudonymous. That’s a step up.
  • Spammers should be completely blocked from posting. I hope.
  • I shouldn’t have to screen comments — they’ll go up immediately, and it will save me time.

I’m going to do this unless I hear a good reason not to. “I don’t want to register” and “I’m afraid Google and the CIA will implant a microchip in my brain” are not good reasons. But if you have a serious objection, I’ll take it seriously.

More: I notice that Atrios, who’s on Blogger, uses Haloscan. Any thoughts?

Blogger blues

Since switching to the upgraded version of Blogger a few weeks ago, I’ve noticed that every time I go to the Dashboard, it says, “1 comment needs to be moderated.” Yet if I do, there’s nothing there. And if there are comments that need to be moderated, I’m still told that there’s one left even after I’ve cleared them out.

Beginning yesterday, it now says, “2 comments need to be moderated.” Same deal.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Please don’t tell me to switch to WordPress. I might, but there’s no way I’ll consider it until summer. Besides, I’d like to see if I can tweak Blogger to my satisfaction before giving up.

“Back pocket” journalism

In my Journalism of the Web class last semester, we spent some time talking about “backpack journalism” — that is, journalism done by reporters toting laptops, video cameras, digital audio recorders and satellite phones so they can function as one-person purveyors of online text, video and audio reports from anywhere in the world.

Kevin Sites is a good example of this, although a recent report in the Washington Post showed how backpack journalism is being adapted to community newspapering as well.

Now, according to Clyde Bentley, the backpack is turning into your back pocket. In this piece for the Online Journalism Review, Bentley introduces us to the Nokia N93, a cell phone (the label hardly does it justice) that can record high-quality video, still photos and audio, that runs Microsoft Word and other programs, and that can be used to write stories either directly or with a plug-in keyboard. When you’re done, just upload through the cell network or a WiFi connection. Bentley writes:

My dream scenario is walking into a neighborhood in jeans and sweatshirt, an N93 in one pocket and a keyboard in the other. Sans my tell-tale computer bag and camera, I think I could be just one of the boys as I developed my contacts. And when the time came, I could record audio clips of background sounds, take a few photos of the street corner crowd then shoot a video clip of that great old codger. Back at the café, I could type my story, file it to the office and amble into the sunset.

In the emerging news-media landscape, journalists will need to possess a variety of multimedia skills, whether they like it or not. At least they won’t have to worry about getting a hernia, too.