Music video shot on iPhone
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Tag Archives: iPhone
Exploiting expertise
Mindy McAdams (Teaching Online Journalism) points us to a speech by David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief for Reuters News, to the Intl. Olympics Committee Press Commission (June 23, 2009).
“We in the traditional media … must concentrate our efforts on defining and developing that which really adds value.
That means understanding what really can be exclusive and what really is insightful. It means truly exploiting real expertise.
It means, to my earlier point, using all the multimedia tools available and all the smart multimedia journalists to provide a package so much stronger than any one individual strand.
It means working with the mobile phone and digital camera and social media-enabled public and not against them. Working against them would be crazy.”
The last few days playing with the iPhone, Twitter, Posterous and YouTube make his last point really hop off the page.
I think the long-term success of our news networks –of everyone’s news networks– will depend on understanding and implementing these ideas. Okay, maybe the short-term success.
Mobile Media
Hard to beat the iPhone for audio and video if you want immediate and easy upload to YouTube. The stills are not as good as the Casio delivers. (Can you guess which took the photo below?)
Posterous is fun and easy but not sure that it gives me much that Twitter does not, especially since YouTube now talks to Twitter. There is something about seeing the media nicely presented, in-line on the Posterous page, but you have to get folks there. I’m looking forward to seeing how Tweetie gets video from the iPhone to my Twitter stream.
It all gets a little confusing with literally too many choices. But I do like being able to share the media quickly, even a some sacrifice in quality. I’m guessing I’ll wind up using Twitter, YouTube and Mobile Me for on-the-fly. The blog will get posts like this, after I’ve had a time to reflect and look more closely at the available media.
iPhone + posterous
We’re using the next few days in D.C. to field test the new iPhone. I continue to be amazed at the quality of the video (and audio) from the iPhone.
My first iPhone video
Forget for a moment that I have the iPhone in portrait orientation, and check out the quality of this brief walk through the newsroom. I’ve uploaded videos to YouTube from all kinds of cameras: Sony Camcorder; Flips; my beloved Casios; the MacBook iSight.
But I don’t think I’ve ever ended up with a clip that looked and sounded this good. I know, could be some Cupertino Mind Trick but I think I’m correct on this point. And the iPhone has YouTube option built right in.
iPhone jumps the shark
Missourinet reporter Steve Walsh showed up for work on Thursday with a brand new iPhone. Like most of the folks in the newsroom, Steve is a long-time radio guy who remembers what a splicing block is used for.
All of our reporters know how to post stories to the web and about half of them are getting their Twitter on. But it was nice to see Steve invest his own hard-earned journo bucks in the latest tech. (I’ve encouraged him to take advantage of the 30 day grace period and upgrade to the new iPhone)
I can’t wait to see how Steve uses the iPhone to cover and report the news. To help him along, I thought I’d make a list of some apps that might be useful. I have these on my phone but the list is far from comprehensive and I welcome your suggestions in the comments.
- Google News Reader
- Tweetie – my Twitter client-of-choice
- TweetMic – For recording audio and linking to Twitter
- Camera – Comes with phone. Stills and video
- Photogene – Great for cropping and tweaking still images
Steve does most of the heavy lifting for the Missourinet blog which can be found at Missourinet.com.
iPhone MobileMe
I got a brief look at the new OS for the iPhone yesterday and must say I was impressed. Copy and paste works smooth as buttah. And a bunch of other stuff I didn’t get to play with but the feature that made me squeal like a 12 year old girl was one I had not heard about. From the iPhone website:
“If you misplace your iPhone, MobileMe can help you find it. Log in to me.com to view a map that shows the approximate location of your iPhone. If it’s nearby, have it play a sound to help you find it, or display a message on the Home screen to help someone return it to you.
Your iPhone contains information you don’t want in the hands of a stranger. So if you lose your iPhone and displaying a message on it hasn’t resulted in its safe return, you can initiate a remote wipe and restore factory settings. If you eventually find your iPhone, you can restore your data by enabling your MobileMe account on iPhone.”
How about this option? If you know your phone is stolen and being used by the thief –or someone he sold it to– you turn the phone on and make it play a pre-recorded sound clip: THIS TURD STOLE MY IPHONE! Over and over.
My new phone arrives this Friday and I confess I’m a little giddy with anticipation.
PS: If you click the headline of this post it displays the “related posts” feature we added yesterday. One of which is from a year ago, titled: “Why no iPhone for smays.com.”
Car radio now known as vehicle’s “entertainment center”
Jerry Del Colliano on what lies ahead for your car’s “radio” …
“In nine to 12 months, Ford’s Sync will enable Internet capabilities on a smartphone and allow the Internet’s most popular radio station – Pandora — to play throughout the car’s sound system. Want Live 365 — you’ve got it.
It’s not just Ford, the other surviving automakers will also be adding the most anticipated consumer audio feature of all time — Internet streaming. Delphi and Autonet Mobile are calling for companies to create Internet connectivity devices as standard equipment for new cars.”
We’re gonna need more buttons on that dial.
More at CNET. “We’ll be able to link you to your Internet in the car. If you brought an iPhone into the vehicle, you could interact with that through voice. You could then read your e-mail by voice,” said Joe Berry, Ford business and product development director for Sync, referring to a future version of Sync.”
MU J-School requires iPhone/iPod Touch. Sort of.
Freshmen admitted into the University of Missouri School of Journalism (and pre-jounalsim students) will be “required” to have an iPhone or ilPod Touch beginning this fall. But not really. If the device is “required” it can be included in a financial need estimate.
According to the story in the Columbia Missourian, iPods and iPhones are “learning devices” used to record lectures. But student still have the option of using their laptops to record lectures.
People have already started bitching about this. Favoring one brand of computer or device; scamming the financial needs program, etc.
When I saw @georgekopp ‘s tweet on this, I thought it was a good idea but for a reason not mentioned in the story.
News is going (has gone?) mobile. A journalism student can’t begin to understand –and report on– that world without a moblie device and –for the moment– the iPhone and iPod Touch are the of breed. I can’t believe the J-school didn’t make that point.
It would be like coming to photography school without a camera.
[A few hours later]
This is another one of those fantasy courses that are easy to come up with if you’ve never taught a class and have no expectation of doing so.
iPhone Reporting would come somewhere in the middle of j-school, rather than at beginning or end. Might work something like this:
Students are equipped with the new iPhone we’re all hoping will come out this summer. It does still images; audio and video (including editing apps). And that’s it. No laptops, digital cameras recorders… just the iPhone.
Each picks a story to cover for the entire semester. Or maybe they pick one from a hat. Either way.
Students are encouraged to use any and all platforms: YouTube, Twitter, flickr, Facebook, Twitpic, etc. The professor follows along online, offering feedback and suggestions during class time.
For all I know the MU J-School might already offer such a course. Perhaps it’s time for another visit with my old pal Mike McKean. Last time we spoke (almost 4 years ago?!) he had been tapped to head up the school’s new “convergence” program. Four Internet years is a lifetime.
PS: I now see he is in charge of the school’s Futures Lab. This implies there is more than one future. Very quantum.
“The world in my pocket”
That’s how Mindy McAdams describes her iPhone:
“If someone has all the videos and quality radio news she could ever find time to listen to (or watch) right in her pocket, how can anything even remotely like the newspaper compete with that? The newspaper as it was, in the heyday of the 30 percent profit margins, had something for everyone. Now the Internet-enabled phone provides that.”
I’ve had that “iPhone = world in my pocket” thought while sitting at the counter of the Towne Grill, waiting form my biscuits and gravy. First the email, then the Twitter, then Google Reader.
Once upon a time, I bought a copy of USA Today to read with my grub. But eventually 75 cents for the few stories of interest seemed pricey. Then I started printing out stories the night before and making my own little newspaper. And then I got an iPhone.
I think Ms. McAdams really asks the good question:
“Will traditional print news organization come up with programming, instead of random and disconnected stories? I don’t mean it has to be audio and video, but it would be something with an identity, like a show or a series. The closest thing I can think of that’s not radio is David Pogue — a brand unto himself.”
“Random and disconnected stories.” Hmm. I need to think about this. More in the morning.
Next morning: I’m now wondering if our news networks have been too focused on “random and disconnected stories?” We’ve worked hard to put our news stories online with less thought and energy given to building identity. Well, that’s not entirely true. We’ve put a lot of our existing radio programs and features on our websites. But would we be better served to focus more podcasts?