New media in new blog

I’ve been working on an extension of my international media project: I am going to create a section on my Web site dedicated to Second Life. This section will actually be a whole separate site called Media in Second Life.
My goal is to conduct several interviews with Second Life reporters and international media staff from the in-world, that is, for example, iReporters, and reporters from mainstream media and news agencies such as Reuters.
I will post these interviews along with related multimedia content as I complete them.
I will cover aspects from audience to content to technical aspects of reporting from the in-world, as well as background information on each of the groups I contact in Second Life. One of my main interests after knowing Second Life a little better than I did before, is why some reporters have left real world media to start reporting from Second Life. Also, I would like to ask them what are the differences when reporting from the in-world and the amount of time they spent on it, no matter if they do it as professionals or as a hobby.
Finally, I will try to make connections between Second Life and the blogosphere and Facebook, where some of the groups gather too. I specifically expect interactivity both with and from these groups. I’ll try having my site posted on their group pages and maybe some related Blogs so I can publicize it.
The Web site will include multimedia content, as I will convert my reports into news stories with photos and videos from my interviews in Second Life.
I invite you to read those interviews and check for groups, networks and contacts in my new site. This is how I will organize it:

Interview in Second Life

I don’t know if it’s because the hours when I went on Second Life or the places I was visiting are not that popular on SL, but I couldn’t find that many avatars to interview. After checking places like BBC World and BBC.co.uk, which have impressive buildings and instalations, I ran into the CNN’s iReport group and found one of their reporters.

Meeting with Rekka Berchot before going to Future where we talked about iReports

Rekka Berchot was one of the first iReporters, she -as in her female avatar- started sending content to CNN even before they created launched the program. However, after a while and as she got the impression that her reports became sometimes “advertisements” and that the content would sometimes be twisted, she decided to send content through, about and from Second Life.

My arrival at Cnn’s iReport

Her contacts among musicians, CNN staff, iReporters and people from education fields help her find events to go to and then report about. When asked how she finds the stories she answered: “I don’t find the stories, they find me.” Just like in real life.

Excerpt from the conversation with Rekka Berchot

What I’ve learned from this interview is that CNN actualy broadcasts iReports that have been produced from SL and that are covering events in the “inworld.” Berchot says that CNN, however, is now more interested in covering stories that link both worlds.

It’s been following one of the links she gave me as an example of a sucessful iReport produced through Second Life that I have found what she meant about connecting two worlds. The next video was produced by Raveon and Miles Obrien, reporting about a live event on Second Life, Space Junky concert.

However, there’s a continuation to this story. The video bellow is an excerpt of a story by CNN about Space Junky: a band of three musicians who are each in a different country but play live in Second Life.

It’s after I found this story that I have become more and more intrigued about Second Life and how it’s being used by more international media, just like CNN is doing. Stay tunned, if you want to know more

*Versión en Español

My Second Day in Second Life

My Second day in Second Life brought more surprises than the first one.

As part of my homework this week, I have to go to a Second Life event, take a picture –or snapshot- and then post it on Facebook.

Just trying to find an event became part of the Second Life amusement. The default search wasn’t giving me any results that I liked: I went to Google search after running into a few dancing room where some naked people walked into me and others were just there, dancing. What for, I don’t know.

I went back to the “real” world, and searched on Google for Second Life day events. To my surprise, I found a someone (though there are many people) who posts all the Second Life events, everyday, on his blog. But still, none of those were of my interest or I had too much trouble trying to find out if my First Life hour was ahead or behind Second Life’s.

Next step: I went home. My First Life home. I typed in Madrid on my search bar and only one thing showed up: La Casa Encendida, a place where you can visit exhibits, go to concerts or have dinner.

Arthur Rimbaud Exhibit in Second Life

After walking around the Arthur Rimbaud exhibit for a while, I was shocked by the advertisements on the walls –real advertisements from the same company that sponsors the center- and how similar it looks to the Casa Encendida that I know from Madrid.

La Casa Encendida in Second Life

I will post the snapshots today and then I’ll go to bed and dream of Second Life hallways. It still creeps me out a little, but I’m getting used to it.

It’s still too big, too broad and new to me as to navigate through it comfortably and expect to get to the places that I want to see. It still intrigues me what people do on Second Life, how they feel, why do they want to stay there “dancing” sometimes or maybe go shopping when you could just take a walk outside. I want to know why people “buy” houses in Second Life. Why do they play videogames in Second Life? I want those answers.

*Spanish Version

My first day in Second Life

I’ve never been more lost in my entire life. Or I should say in my first life… I felt disoriented and absolutely confused in an environment that I’m not used to at all. I don’t like video games and just so you get an idea of how good I am at them, I’m one of those who play car races on video games and never makes it to the end because I crash my car so many times I might even end up going backwards. Yes, that’s me. 

Feeling dizzy in front of the computer, with my avatar going round and round looking at everything on the screen, I was surprised by a naked avatar as soon as I entered the “new world.” But that’s how we enter the “real world” too, or not? I lately made my first trip to the Newseum (where I found NO ONE) and tried to find a classmate in a different location. Then Second Life crashed. 

My goal is to navigate the virtual world, get confident with it, talk to some people and find media outlets on it. The ones I know from my first life. But that seemed difficult yesterday. If I can’t find them, I will then read and watch Second Life outlets and analyze them as it is part of my project is to study how international media are using Internet applications to reach new audiences. 

In the meantime, I will post here daily to let you know my experiences and thoughts about my life in a virtual world where some are making real world fortunes –which I have no intent in doing. Yet

Jack Myers said that entering Second Life is “the equivalent of an amphibian taking its first tentative steps out of water and discovering how to breathe.”

Well,  I felt like that yesterday.

*Spanish Version

European Media on Facebook

From pages to podcasts in Facebook to fan pages for acknowledged reporters, international media are focusing some of their latest marketing campaigns on Facebook.

Media outlets have started reaching their readers, their audience, indirectly: instead of trying to keep them as a loyal readership, media are focusing on new audiences, trying to take them from the Web to their outlet. And Facebook is of great help to them. The opportunity to create a Facebook page with RSS feeds, podcasts and information on forums, discussion boards and blogs is probably more valuable than a commercial not just on TV or the radio, but on Facebook itself.

Guided by my previous analysis of media outlets that carry a Twitter profile, the countries that count with more pages in the social network are England, first, then followed by Spain and France. Even though countries such as Ireland had several outlets updating content through Twitter, none of these outlets are on Facebook. 

One significant difference between the outlets on Facebook is that some of them have created pages, allowing readers to become “fans,” while other outlets have groups and readers are regular “members.” Those pages -not the groups- are more developed, have more supporters and are richer in content.  

The British newspaper The Guardian is the outlet with more fans, 2,111, and is the leader on amount of “print” information on the site. The Guardian’s Facebook page offers RSS feeds but no mutimedia content at all, readers cannot find photos or videos related to the newspaper or its online site. This is also the case of The Financial Times and The Sun, British newspapers as well that include on their Facebook pages from mini-feeds with their fans’ activities to RSS Feeds with content from the paper but don’t inlcude multimedia -even though this is prominent in The Sun, The Financial Times and The Guardian online sites. 

The next country in number of media fans is Spain, with two outlets Elpais.com and Elmundo.es on Facebook. El Pais’s page is followed by 634 fans that have access to multimedia and print content, can engage in discussions both on the page and the newspaper site, can read notes, see photos and videos and upload multimedia content of their own too. A difference with other sites is that El Pais RSS feeds have a short blurb with enough information (which might prevent readers from going to the site to read more). El Mundo includes the same features with just one exception, its 109 fans can participate in surveys and polls carried through the Facebook discussion board, without having to go to the newspaper site. 

Following in number of members are the French newspapers Le Monde, with 35 fans, and Le Figaro, a group with 62 members. These low numbers can be due to the fact that, even though the pages are available in English, the French edition of Facebook was released last month of March. However, these two pages offer as much print content as multimedia. These pages offer videos both form the news site and YouTube. Readers and members also can participate in more than discussions and forums, but also post their favorite videos and get information about events related to their favorite newspaper. Blogs are also an extra on these two pages, as they have their own RSS Feed separate from that for the news stories. 

Just as developed as any of these sites is Iktavisen, the Facebook page for the Norwegian outlet. The only difference, and this might be due to the recent release of Facebook in Norwegian and that this page is very recent, is that there are no fans. 

It seems that both the language -there are less Internet users in Spain than in the UK, however, Spain has the fastest growing population on Facebook, which led Facebook developers to launch a new version in Spanish before any other language-, the Internet tradition of each countries and, more important, the vinculation between print and online editions of each outlet and the percentage of Internet users with a Facebook profile are important factors when studying the success of news outlets on Facebook. 

 

European Media in Twitter

I took a list of all European media, from TV stations to newspapers, and tracked them on Twitter. Here’s a collection of their profiles, which you can see on Flickr. 

The Financial Times, UK, profile in Twitter.
Click on the image to see more profiles in my Flickr page. 

I wanted to know which countries have more media on Twitter and try to figure out whether it is related to the percentage of the population with Internet access, economic level or the development of their news sites.

Among the countries with more media on Twitter are United Kingdom, France, Ireland and Spain. I found Italy, Norway, Switzerland and Germany with only one media to follow online. 

Germany and United Kingdom, for example, are among the European countries with larger percentages of the population with Internet access, however, I didn’t find German media in Twitter, while almost all the Brittish one are there for users to follow them. 

Spain is among the coutries with less Internet access, but all the newspapers have a profile in Twitter and some television channels are starting to develop them.

This makes me think that it is not so much related to internet access but to the use readers do of the Internet, how deep they navigate and how well connected they want to be to their media. 

 

Football time

Before you start wondering what Football has to do with my research and this blog I will tell you what they have in common: Football is all over the news these days in Europe.
Because of the continental championship, European news sites are doing their best to tell the story different, not a different story, online. From flash applications to last minute updates, the Web is helping European journalists to enhance their coverage in a way that they hadn’t done before.

The special navigation bar is everywhere in El Pais

In Spain, the newspaper El Pais, has created a whole new site for the event coverage, with live updates that are also published in the newspaper site. In that case you can even expand the window where the information is displayed, I guess for those who are not big fans of football and can get annoyed with red flags everytime a player scores a goal or a game is over…

Games for Spaniards in El Pais

Once you enter the site, you can read blogs, watch videos from the games, engage in forums about the games, participate in Trivial Games, (as you can see from the picture, I don’t know that much about European football) and see animations of the last goals scored by the teams. This specific animation is inspired by a very popular game among kids -and not so kids- in Spain, using bottle caps with the picture or the name of the player, which are kicked with one finger to push the “ball,” usually a little bean. Yes, the ones you also eat. We are like that. 

Excerpt from  
comments in the
Le Monde special
coverage

The French newspaper Le Monde has also launched special coverage on its Web site, however, this is not as interactive looking. The reader has to dig a little bit to find videos and blogs or even games to participate in something rather than just readings. The front page of the special coverage includes blogs and comments from readers who have participated in the different forums but the look of the site is similar to the news site, so the reinforcement of interactivity is more difficult. 

The Sun, an English newspaper, has also kept a similar appeareance for the special coverage, with an overwhelming amount of photographs. And also similar to what other outlets have done on their front pages, The Sun offers a “Live Match Centre” with instant updates about the games.   

In germany, the Frankfurter Alemeine Zeitung has also created a separate site for the Euro2008 coverage, different from the news site and its Sports section, with a little teaser that takes readers from the news home page to the special report. The special coverage includes blogs, videos, games, live coverage, a fan section and all the news about the German team, with a navigation bar animated with Flash in the middle of the page. 

Navigation bar in the Frankfurter Alemeine Zeitung special coverage site.

As you can see, Football has inspired everyone in Europe to be a better reporter online, improving the coverage thanks to what the Internet and online applications have to offer. Hope you enjoy!

 

 

Statement of purpose

My experience this year at SOC has changed my perspective on the Internet, transformed and expanded the uses I make of it and deepened my interest in discovering what it has to offer to me as an individual but mostly as a journalist.

I will use this blog to post the results of my research on how foreign media are using Web applications to not only report stories but to enhance them in a way that they can only do online. It’s because of this class that I have discovered some Spanish media use Twitter feeds to engage more followers. Others have Facebook pages too. I want to go further than that and research the use of digital storytelling techniques and the conection between their print and digital editions, in the case of newspapers; the opportunity to listen to radio stations online -including old content- and video clips from television linked to live broadcasts or the promotion of content online both through the Web and TV itself. 

I have seen in the past that advances proven successful in the United States would be adopted abroad in 4-6 years, but now it is taking even less and I would like to research how it’s happening –for example, the influence of international consulting firms that work on redesigns for online publications in different countries, or the networking done through journalism international organizations.

I want my blog to be coherent with “New Media.” I will practice all the techniques that I have learnt in the past and will discover through my research. I will also bring stories and examples of what foreign media are publishing to share it with you.