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Deloitte’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications group anticipates the commercialization of social networks and user-generated content, the rise of real economies in virtual worlds and the need for a more sophisticated approach to “long tail” marketing in this article published last year. “The challenge for media companies in 2007 is to second-guess how the public’s perception of value may change …” the authors write. What do you think? Which online trends are likely to be most profitable for media companies, and what, if anything, have the authors failed to anticipate?

This special report from strategy+business magazine published by the consulting firm Booz Allen, tells marketers they are doomed to fail if they do not understand and use the unique capabilities of the Internet to reach consumers. What do you think?

Post your comments on the first assigned reading for Week 5:  “Social Ties: Networking Together” from The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom.  Post comments by noon, Monday, February 11.

Post your comments on the second assigned reading for Week 5: Daily Life in Cyberspace: How the Computerized Counterculture Built a New Kind of Place.  Excerpted from The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier.  Post your comments by noon, Monday, February 11.

Is fragmentation of audiences on the Web an opportunity to report deeply on a topic to a narrow audience? Does it spell the decline of general interest publications? Other thoughts on the article?

 Note: This is one of two articles assigned for week three of New Media Storytelling. Please add your comments by 12 p.m. Tuesday, January 22. 

Gillmor calls the advent of non-professional journalism “one of the healthiest media developments in a long time.”  Do you agree?  What do you think of Wikipedia? Is it a credible source, as Gillmor says? Why or why not? Gillmor cites examples of independent journalists being able to support their efforts through advertising or direct support from readers.  Do you expect this business model to grow? What does this mean for traditional media outlets?

In his article, ‘ The History of Online Journalism,” David Carlson traces the roots of digital news from Britain’s “teletext” system of the 1970s through the dawn of Yahoo!, AOL and the rest. What were some of the keys to success for the technologies that survived? Did Carlson leave out any key developments? Much has happened in the field since 2003 when the article was first published. If you were to continue the history from 2003-2008, what would be the highlights? How do you see online journalism changing in the future?

This article was handed out in class Monday. Please check with a classmate if you need a copy. Post your thoughts here and aim to offer fresh comments playing off the ideas of those who post before you.

In 1945, The Atlantic Monthly published an article by Dr. Vannevar Bush, director of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development. Bush called on his fellow scientists to develop new tools to record and organize the wealth of their knowledge. Bush wrote: ” The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships.”

What do you think of Bush’s ideas? What technologies did he anticipate with accuracy and which would be useful inventions today? Have we developed adequate tools to access and evaluate new scientific developments? Or is our world much the same as what Bush saw in 1945, too much information, poorly organized.

This article is available for student access in Blackboard/Documents/Week One. Please post your thoughts on this article by noon, Monday, January 14. I encourage you to bring in - and link to - alternative points of view, to read the comments of others and to respond to those in your individual posts.

This is home base for Medill’s New Media Storytelling course. Here you may access all of the class news blogs. You will post comments on the readings, ask questions and share tips as you enter into new media publishing. Matt and I will also use this space to post comments on the blogs and answer your technical questions here. Welcome aboard!