I just registered for NewsTools2008.org, a three-day mashup that will bring together journalists, technologists and entrepreneurs from April 30-May 3, 2008 at the Yahoo! Conference Center in Silicon Valley. Early registration is $295, a bargain for me as I live a short drive from Yahoo HQ. This conference is part of a continuing series titled, Journalism that Matters, and the Future Newsroom project (details).
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Friday begins the Santa Cruz Media Summit a three-day gathering sponsored by Project Censored and 911truth.org. It is billed as “a strategy session for already active and influential players to . . . forge tactical alliances, introduce new distribution technologies, and mutually enhance each other’s strongest work.” For a flavor of the event and attendees, check out the aggregation blog, Coup News.
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Multimedia Tools: Your 2006 Shopping List, is a $29.95 course, held Thursday, Jan 31, should easily recoup its cost if you are buying visual and audio capture and editing tools. (Details and registration)Â
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 In his article, Teaching online newswriting, Online Journalism Review Robert Niles offers this nugget:
” . . . my students first focus on single task unknown to print journalists: search engine optimization. . . . To place well in search engine results, an article must be sharply focused to the keywords that readers are likely to use in an effort to find the piece. To write such articles, I asked my students to put themselves in the position of their potential readers (never a bad idea for a writer!), then envision what one or two words and phrases a reader would use to search for their piece . . when you write a piece to score highly in search engine result pages, you craft a piece that serves its readers, as well.”
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All things in moderation? We wish. With more sites encouraging comments, controlling passion without inhibiting involvement and expression becomes the art of social networking. Paid Content writer Amanda Natividad writes a useful pointer to an article in which MediaShift’s Mark Glaser lays out the dos, dont’s and maybes of moderation.