Sound photo slideshow editing tips: How to pace slideshow and move photos

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Mu Lin

A slideshow needs good photos, good sound as well as good editing. Here’s two editing tips that will make best use of the (well-taken) photos: alternate the slideshow with still and moving segments; use small, slow, smooth photo movements.

A feature of Soundslides Pro, the popular slideshow tool, is to add movements to a still photo – something we call Ken Burns effect, where we can zoom or pan on a still photo. First-time users of Soundslides tend to “abuse” this feature – they apply movement to each and every photo, they zoom all the way in or out, pan all the way from left to right, or use fast movements. Read below for tips that can transform a rookie user to a pro editor. Continue reading →

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Storyplanet review: A promising multimedia storytelling tool for digital journalists

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Mu Lin

Storyplanet, a digital reporting platform still in its beta, provides a quick and easy way for a digital reporter to put together a package that contains text, photo, video and audio, which can then be shared on the web or via social media. All for free.

My test drive of Storyplanet shows a few bugs and a lack of features that I hope the developer can address in the official release. But I would still recommend that instructors and students adopt this tool in classroom teaching/learning of digital journalism. Continue reading →

Posted in Digital tools and tips, Industry observation | 9 Comments

Dramatic changes come with digital-first strategy of TCU student media

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Mu Lin

The organizational chart of student media at Texas Christian University shows dramatic changes in both organizational structure and workflow after they initiated the digital-first strategy in fall 2012. What they did was essentially starting a new organization, and in this process, legacy platforms (newspaper/magazine/broadcast) are no longer the focus.

A student media adviser myself, I contacted TCU student media adviser Aaron Chimbel and asked about their experiences with a digital-first operation. Aaron is kind enough to answer my questions and even drew an organizational chart in explaining their digital-first operation. I wanted to share with my readers what I learned about their innovative work. Continue reading →

Posted in College media going digital | 1 Comment

Embed video and images in Google maps: A beginner’s guide for multimedia news reporting

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Mu Lin

Using Flickr and Youtube to host your photos and video, you can add multimedia contents to an interactive Google map. Free and easy.

ALERT: Please check out an updated post for how to embed video and photo in Google maps. Google replaced its mapping tool with Maps Engine Lite, and techniques introduced in this post need to be updated. Continue reading →

Posted in Digital tools and tips | 6 Comments

How to teach/learn data journalism: Tools for every journalist; programming for data specialist

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Mu Lin

The popular data tools are for every digital journalist to learn and use in everyday work, and the “high-end” programming/coding is for people who want to be a “data specialist.” Journalism programs can incorporate basic data tools in a (required) intro digital journalism course, and teach “high-end” data journalism, in an elective course, to students who want to pursue further in this area.

Learning how to use data in storytelling is different from learning how to be a data specialist. Some people have the notion that every journalism student needs to be trained in coding and programming to produce those complex data projects that wow us. I say “no” – the popular, easier-to-learn data tools would suffice for day-to-day data visualization needs; let’s leave coding/programming to those who want to be a “data journalist.” Continue reading →

Posted in Data journalism, Digital journalism education | Leave a comment

How I optimized my blog site for smartphones

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Mu Lin

If you have a WordPress blog site and want to make your site mobile friendly, you have two simple choices: switch to a responsive theme, or install a mobile plugin. For my blog, I chose to install a free mobile plugin, which comes with its pros and cons.

I recently wrote that college media need to have a mobile site, but I realized that my own blog site was not being mobile-friendly in the first place. Here’s how my blog look(ed) like on an iPhone 4S screen. The major issue, as I said, is the cluttered look of the regular website on a small screen and the cumbersome user experience. Continue reading →

Posted in Mobile news reporting | 7 Comments

One fruitful year of blogging: How I increase monthly traffic from single-digit to thousands

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Mu Lin

If I were to summarize what I did to grow this blog for the past year, it is (a) find a niche topic and target audience, (b) keep writing relevant, quality contents, and (c) let contents be found through Google and social media. And ultimately, the rewards of blogging go far beyond traffic numbers.

Unexpected numbers: The growing traffic and exposure

Traffic to this blog was single digit in February 2012. A year later, this blog receives about 4,000 page views for the month of February 2013. A modest number in the eyes of big-name bloggers, it nonetheless far exceeds my expectations. Continue reading →

Posted in Writing for the web | 17 Comments

College media need a mobile site optimized for smartphones

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Mu Lin

In a previous post about “digital first” strategy for student newspapers, I said a digital strategy involves all three platforms: print, web and mobile. At issue here is that regular websites need to be optimized for mobile viewing – a “web” site is optimized for computer monitors, and it does not function equally well on the smaller smartphone screens.

Why bother about mobile site? That’s where the growth is. In describing digital strategies at Wall Street Journal, digital managing editor Narisetti says:

the device that currently makes up the largest proportion of WSJ’s traffic is the smartphone – which is the platform providing the fastest growth – especially from Android handsets. Continue reading →

Posted in College media going digital, Mobile news reporting | 3 Comments

“Inverted pyramid” is still a functional guideline for web writing

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Mu Lin

I said in other posts that the time-tested “old” journalism is still basis for good digital journalism, and here’s one more reason for that argument: the conventional “inverted pyramid” news writing style works especially well to facilitate reading of long-form writings on the web. Continue reading →

Posted in Writing for the web | 4 Comments

We need a digital reporting tool and Storyplanet shows promise

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Mu Lin

A digital reporting or storytelling tool can provide a one-stop solution for presenting multimedia contents. Storyplanet, a new web-based tool, shows promise of becoming such a digital reporting platform. Continue reading →

Posted in Digital tools and tips, Industry observation | Leave a comment