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.

Trying is a prerequisite of innovation

Joe Ruiz is the nightside Web editor for KSAT.com in San Antonio, Texas. You can find him on Twitter or at his blog. He is currently working as one of the new media track leaders for the upcoming National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention scheduled for June in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

With a smaller staff at my news organization, we’re at a disadvantage when it comes to covering some stories the way they deserve, but one of the strengths of our newsroom has been breaking news coverage. I have a few people who’ve taken to using social media tools for our work, and it’s actually helped us do our jobs better. One of our reporters and a few of our video journalists have started using Twitter and Qik to provide news coverage faster than our counterparts.

It’s been fairly simple with the technology and even more so because my coworkers believe it’s to our benefit as a news organization. Let’s face facts: No matter what technology is available, if you don’t have people willing to try, it means nothing. We’ve been lucky since more and more people in our newsroom have been willing to accept the benefits — or at the very least, try them out — of social media and its strengths.

One of my favorite examples has been our recent coverage of an apartment fire . One of our VJs carries a jailbroken iPhone loaded with Qik (he’s one of five VJs with Qik installed). Once the fire call came out, Sam Lerma headed to the scene and immediately began streaming with his iPhone. He had some extra scene video as well as an interview with the fire department spokesman. But here’s where we did better than every other news organization in town: We had it live. Using Qik’s embed code and adding it to our story, we streamed Sam’s interview and had promotion from our breaking news coverage to give us a nice boost on our page views and time spent on our site.

Of course, our story’s no Hudson River plane ditching, but it’s one of the ways we bring breaking news to our readers. I know we’ve done a good job because when news breaks, our numbers spike. We’ve earned the respect of our readers by offering them another way to get news as fast as we can provide. One of our reporters keeps his iPhone ready to do video and send photos so we can show images without having to wait for videos to be fed.

While most of our guys have iPhones, two have Samsung phones that also work with Qik, so it’s not necessarily that you need the latest, most expensive technology. You have to be, however, willing to try with whatever you have or can afford. Social media is a wonderful tool when used correctly, but as I wrote above, you have to be willing to try what’s available.

The best tools mean nothing if you’re not willing to try.