Monday, February 29, 2016

The unflinching capture of unchallenged thoughts



For longer than I can remember, I've had unannounced ideas and thoughts and phrases pop into my head to pronounce their greatness, only to leave just as quickly, as it laughing, forever getting lost in the fog of oblivion, their presumptive greatness never to be tested or challenged.
No longer. I am writing these suckers down, forcing them into a page. Or, as is my case, the insipid Notes app inside a cold iPhone. If they are indeed great or have potential, they'll be freed. Otherwise, they'll face true oblivion, no longer tormenting me with What Ifs and You Should Haves.
Here's one such sentence:

I don't have spontaneous lyricism.

Oh, well.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯



Wednesday, February 24, 2016

DFM chat on new Facebook changes

Journalists, Digital First Media peeps, anyone who wants to are going to be taking part on our Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, to talk about all things journalism.

Today we are talking about new Facebook changes, including new reaction buttons, Instant Articles and more. How can newsrooms use these new forms of engagement? How do you interpret the data from it? How cautious should you be as a journalist in using these buttons yourself? Are you planning on using Instant Articles? (What about notes? Remember those?) What about live video on Facebook and 360-degree video?

If you want to chime in, post a comment in the container or a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below.

Monday, February 22, 2016

The Strange and Terrible Saga of the obfuscated ideas



When your digital environment is a collection of empathetically dissonant and disparate ephemeral dreams and your real world is an allegoric reflection of your redundant alliteration, you risk mangling your ideas with malapropisms.
But even if you don't, obfuscating your thoughts with nice sounding words is a terrible form of hiding. You're not clever if you aren't clear.
I'm talking to myself here, so let me restate the original thought:
You might get confused when your Internet is all over the place.
Now that we've cleared that up, let's go all over the place.



Thursday, February 18, 2016

Perspective is hindsight is everything


Many of you probably have a Facebook memories feature activated, where the first thing that shows up in your feed when you first visit Facebook is a post from years past from that very old day.

Very quickly, one thing becomes clear.
The jarring triviality of some posts you thought important at the time is tempered by the emotion that others bring, but this warmer feeling is also leveled by the anxiety caused from the potential resurfacing of some old thing you'd prefer to remain forgotten.

And it's all being done by computer code. The robots are tinkering with your feelings.


Wednesday, February 17, 2016

DFM chat on blogging and its value

A Tumblr reblog from 2012 illustrates ways
news orgs use blogs and platforms. Also, teens

Journalists, Digital First Media peeps, anyone who wants to are going to be taking part on our Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, to talk about all things journalism.

Today we are talking about blogging and how it's evolved and what platforms have adopted its ways. Do you (still) have a blog or have your ideas moved graduated to other platforms? Should they? Is it still a thing? Or did they just got absorbed elsewhere? What traits do blog have that have value in a blog? Bring your blogging tips and your #realtalk!

If you want to chime in, post a comment in the container or a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Stretch and stitch, stat

Programming note: Yesterday's Internet Today will now start with a 360 photo, which you can also enjoy in virtual reality. So if you have a smartphone, all you need is a viewer.

Here's how:


 Let me know how it works (or doesn't) for you.


Remember that experiment where I suggested writing a sentence a week and taking a picture? I'm still doing that, though I'm beginning to slip? 
So here is a sentence I always wanted to write but haven't quite finish formulating, the one about how all the ideas are floating in the air, and will land on more than one person, and will escape your head as soon as you want to write them down. Those are the best ideas, capricious bastards that they are. 

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Born of frustration



*This conversation didn't happen while listening to this*

"Hey, Ivan! How come you haven't written a newsletter post in over a week?" wrote no one ever.
"I've been terribly busy!" I didn't say to this nonexisting person.
"Thanks for asking, though!"

Regular readers of Yesterday's Internet, Today! might have also noticed that the photo above is not a Google Glass image. I have finally retired the device, a year late and a dollar I didn't even have short. The truth is that the device forced me to look around for photos to take, ironically making me pay attention to the world outside the screen.
And I like that feeling.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

DFM chat on social media metrics that matter

No idea what this is

Journalists, Digital First Media peeps, anyone who wants to are going to be taking part on our Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, to talk about all things journalism.

Today we are talking about social media metrics that matter. How do you leverage reach and impressions for impact? How much should journalists focus on link clicks or engagement? (spoiler: it depends!). How do you know how much impact are you having?
Bring your pica poles and your #realtalk. Let's get some numbers down.

If you want to chime in, post a comment in the container or a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below.