Thursday Dose of social media: YouTube mobile uploads exploding
YouTube Mobile Uploads Up 400% Since iPhone 3GS Launch — We said that the iPhone 3G S was a game changer and early returns support that. The 3G S makes it so incredibly easy to shoot, edit and upload video on the go. It might just be a must-have tool for mobile journalists.
YouTube has seen an explosion of mobile uploads in the last year, and this trend appears to be picking up. If journalists don’t get in on the action now, they risk being supplanted by citizens with mobile phones really fast. Look at Iran, most of the video coming out of there is from mobile devices.
Expect mobile phones with 3G s-like capabilities to become the norm in the coming years.
Nielsen: Teens Spend Much Less Time On The Web Than Older People – Adults spend more time online than teens. Teens apparently really like TV and are watching more of it than ever.
So what does this all mean for journalists? Adults, the people with disposable money, really like the Internet. That key 18-49 demographic? They’re all about the Interwebs. It’s not tomorrow’s readers, but rather today’s readers that are flocking to the Web in droves.
The Real Genius Of The Kindle? The Return Of ‘Unitasking’ — “When’s the last time you did only one thing at a time? If you’re reading this—particularly if you’re in the news or content business—there’s a good chance you’ll have trouble answering that question.
But one new technology is taking consumers in the opposite direction, and I’ve found it has unexpectedly helped me reclaim control of my attention span. It’s the Kindle. Unlike most digital devices, Amazon.com’s e-reader makes it difficult to multitask.”
This is an excellent argument for the power of the Kindle. Journalists are struggling on the Web, because the Web naturally takes advantage of people’s willingness to multitask. But the Kindle isn’t a multitasking device, and it has the ability to get people to spend more time with a single kind of content.
That is surprisingly powerful.
Did Shaq Just Find Out He Was Traded On Twitter? — I can’t say if Shaq 100 percent found out he was traded via Twitter, but that’s what it sure looks like.
Twitter is breaking news left and right.
Story of Neda’s Death Reveals 7 Elements of Next-Step Journalism — This is a great read about how pros and amateurs can work together to report news. And even though average citizens are able to report more and more, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a need for professional journalists.
Monday Dose of social media: Newspaper 2.0 with The New York Times
Amazon tweaks its Kindle store for iPhone users — This is where Amazon.com and the Kindle start to really get interesting. Amazon.com is primarily a company that sells media like books, music and movies. This is the first salvo of Amazon moving beyond the Kindle itself for its e-book products.
Amazon may eventually sell its content on other E-Readers from companies like Sony. But this decision should make e-books more popular and may get more people to think seriously about buying an E-Reader. The biggest negative currently to newspapers putting too much hope or time into E-Readers is that not many people own them.
But if Amazon keeps broadening the amount of devices that can use its content, it may make the whole Kindle ecosystem more appealing to everyone.
The New York Times on Adobe AIR; The Paper Without the Paper — The Times Reader (now 2.0) is a different way to consume NYT content online. It’s a slick Adobe Air interface that many people may find more pleasurable to use than nytimes.com. The Times is one of the few newspaper companies out there experimenting with new user interfaces.
The coolest feature of the Times Reader is its offline support. It makes it a good product for people who travel or who are on the go a lot and don’t have 3G service. It’s also cheaper than the NYT on the Kindle.
The Internet isn’t print. There is no reason why companies like the Times can’t have multiple UIs for its content. Different people may like different interfaces.
The Times Reader is more print like than nytimes.com. It seems the Times is hoping that the Times Reader appeals to people who usually prefer print.
I’m not sure how many people are willing to pay $3.45 a week to subscribe to the Times Reader. If nytimes.com eventually requires a subscription, I could use paying for Times Reader, but as it stands right now I don’t get this strategy. But, we’ll see how this plays out, because it’s safe to say that there will be big changes in store for the Times in the next year.
In the meantime, try out the new Times Reader. It’s at least a different take on how to do a newspaper digitally.
New York Times R&D Group: Newspaper 2.0 — The Nieman Journalism Lab stopped by The New York Times R&D department to check out some of the new technologies and products that the Times is working on. Check out the video below to see some of the interesting stuff that the Times is working on.
New York Times R&D Group: Newspaper 2.0 from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.
Nick Bilton is design integration editor in the Research and Development Group at The New York Times. This video was recorded on May 4, 2009.
