A list of links to help journalists find the tools for successful online reporting, presented to the Society of Professional Journalists National Convention, Aug. 29, 2009, in Indianapolis. Developed with Jeff Cutler

1. Where to go. What to know.
Web tools for journalists....
We’re going to jump right in. I’m Jeff, my colleague is Ron. Our information is on the first
two links in the list you will all have access to after this session.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ronsylvester
http://jeffcutler.com
And you can always just Google, Bing, Mahalo or Wolfram Alpha us....what’s that? You
don’t know those terms. Then we better get started!
Broken into categories, here are dozens of sites that will help you do your job, learn
more about the topics you cover, and also enjoy some creative downtime.
First...
You’re a reporter - so find out what’s going on around you. LISTEN.
Use these tools...
Twitter - http://twitter.com It’s a microblogging tool that allows you to share bits of
information with the world. Txt messaging to a group in 140-character chunks.

2. Good for listening to trending issues.
Good for hearing about breaking news.
Good for wasting time.
San Antonio-based market research firm Pear Analytics analyzed 2,000 tweets
(originating from the US and in English) over a 2-week period from 11:00a to 5:00p
(CST) and separated them into six categories:
* News
* Spam
* Self-Promotion
* Pointless Babble
* Conversational
* Pass-Along Value
The firm found that "pointless babble" accounted for most of Twitter's content making up
811 tweets or 40.55 percent of the total number of messages sampled.
Conversational messages accounted for 751 messages or 37.55 percent, tweets with
"pass-along value" i.e. retweets -- accounted for 174 messages or 8.70 percent, self-
promotion by companies made up 117 tweets or 5.85 percent, spam was 75 tweets or
3.75 percent and tweets with news from mainstream media publications accounted for
72 tweets or 3.60 percent.

3. Ron has found found great success in using this to cover trials live from the courtroom,
sending periodic tweets through a trial. I've been doing this for over a year now and
other news sites have begun to tweet trials, too. But there are other news uses, too.
It's great for crowd-sourcing: Need someone to comment about a story you're doing?
Post a request on Twitter. We've always gotten good response from this.
Breaking news stories that have used Twitter include wild fires in California, an
earthquake in China and the elections in Iran.
Tweetworks - http://www.tweetworks.com/ Topic-based Twitter groups.
A similar organizational tool is Tweetdeck: http://tweetdeck.com
Well, we've spent more than a minute of Twitter. Already we're behind. We're never
gonna make
Facebook - http://facebook.com The do-it-all, tell-it-all gathering place for people,
companies and organizations. Almost as many users as the population of the United
States (220 Million or so) They’ve made two huge changes in the past year that make
Facebook a player in the information world instead of just a toy.

4. ��.1They opened up their searchable content to include companies and now
status updates from users.
��.2They purchased one of the largest status update aggregators - FriendFeed -
giving them a true Twitter-killer component.
Use it to research and listen.
http://mashable.com/2009/08/03/facebook-journalism/ Journalists' guide to Facebook
FriendFeed - http://friendfeed.com An aggregator of content from all your various social
media tools. People fill their FriendFeed feed with Tweets, status updates and other
alerts.
Great for listening to people and the buzz around the Web on various topics.
Wikis built just for listening to social media - 74 sources - http://wiki.kenburbary.com/
Easy to use. Some pay, some free.

5. LinkedIn - http://linkedin.com The professional site for people and companies looking to
do business together. A great place to find experts. Almost as good as HARO, with a
better realism element. Also has professional groups and a great Q&A section.
Also a great place to keep an online resume and keep it updated.
MySpace - http://myspace.com Used to be the big player, but now caters to music
lovers and indie bands. It’s where kids still go. A raw interface but a perfect place to find
out the buzz on hot bands and new music.
Tumblr - http://tumblr.com A microblog paradigm. See www.wwjce.com for an example.
You can find more robust content here, but it’s as self-focused as Twitter in many
respects. Dubious worth for research...but you might find a gem.
Ning - http://ning.com Personalized groups. You can set them up or find them and join
them. Good for networking and also for making connections. Easy to use.
Meetup - http://meetup.com Group/network site that caters to specific interests. Costs
$100 a year for the organizer, but can be locked down so the group is private.
Interesting model, but of dubious worth for research. Maybe good as an internal
publication group that everyone can access without jumping on the company Intranet.

6. Yammer: https://www.yammer.com/ A free private network for your company or
business. Like Twitter for work
Brightkite - http://brightkite.com Just a fun application that allows you to share your
location with others. No real application in research unless you set up connections with
sources who use Brightkite to broadcast their whereabouts.
Loopt: http://www.loopt.com/ Find out where your friends are and what they're doing.
Or find the parking garage where that secret source wants to spill on the crimes that are
going on ... say, in the White House
FourSquare - http://playfoursquare.com Also a check-in tool that compels users to
check in at venues around their town/city/community to gain points. Could be a
business or advertising tool going forward.
There are also a slew of location-based apps on the iPhone and BlackBerry and now
the Android phone that let you share your presence with the world. Would be nice if
Obama’s BlackBerry was online so we could follow him around.

7. Other sharing can be done via Ping.fm - http://ping.fm An all-in-one site that lets you
share your updates with multiple services at once. Good way to manage the growing
collection of sites.
Google Alerts - http://www.google.com/alerts Use this link to get notified immediately
when something you’re interested in is reported anywhere on the Web.
Twitter Local - http://www.twitterlocal.net/ Use this to watch Twitter on a local basis.
Effectively narrowing all the noise down to your state, city, town or neighborhood.
Twitter Search - http://search.twitter.com Use this to follow Tweets on a specific topic or
keyword.
You look and sound marvelous - and so does your news now that anyone,
anywhere can access it.
Video, audio, photos and podcasts - sharing your content.

8. No matter what it’s called in the newsroom, people are now becoming familiar with the
word content to describe everything that’s delivered via new media tools. Sound,
images and even words. Here are some sites that make sharing your work easy.
Vimeo - http://vimeo.com Good quality video sharing service.
Flickr - http://flickr.com Flickr now lets you share videos as well as photos. You can
share your albums and videos with the world or keep them private. Many bloggers
search the Flickr Creative Common’s images for use in their latest posts.
(Creative Commons discussion after the session)
Piknic: http://www.picnik.com/ Who needs to spend money on PhotoShop? This is
free and works in your browser.
YouTube - http://youtube.com It’s the original and still the biggest. People are making
money off videos of people dancing on treadmills or sharing how their son behaves after
tooth surgery. It’s a time waster but also is in the popular vernacular - so learn what’s
here to keep up with cocktail party chatter.

9. Viddler - http://viddler.com Another video site.
Ustream - http://ustream.com A video storage site that also lets you create your own
video show and air it in real time with a live audience participating.
Livestream - http://livestream.com/ Similar to Ustream. Create a channel and then
broadcast. Easy as that.
Livestream and Ustream would be a great way to "go live" at a press conference or a
live event, especially if your news organization has a channel, you could stream it right
onto your web site.
Seesmic - http://seesmic.com Bridges the gap between microblogging and videocasting.
Record videos and share them.
Then there are the micro versions of that - http://12seconds.tv is one. It's like video
Twitter, and it even has an interface where you can post your 12-second videos to
Twitter.

10. TubeMogul - http://www.tubemogul.com/ Uploads your video to multiple sites so you
don’t have to do it manually.
ClipMoon - http://clipmoon.com
DailyMotion - http://dailymotion.com
And most broadcast stations have set up channels for their content. UReport, iReport
and others also allow citizen journalists to contribute right from their mobile devices.
Qik - http://qik.com Live streaming from your phone.
These solutions all let you create embed codes that allow others to use your video on
their sites. Or you can keep your content private in most cases.
What about collaborative content creation? Get in touch for free.

11. SKYPE - http://skype.com Audio, video and VOIP for reaching people from anywhere
cheaply.
FRING - http://fring.com An app that allows you to use your smartphone as a Wifi phone
or text messaging device for no money.
Adium - http://adium.im An instant messaging client that lets you collect all your chats in
one spot. AIM, GoogleChat, YahooChat and others.
Free Conference Call - http://freeconferencecall.com Just what it sounds like.
Cover It Live - http://coveritlive.com Team based reporting. All can contribute.
YOUSENDit - http://yousendit.com Great way to send very large files without having an
FTP site.

12. http://backpackit.com/ - an office toolkit
Google docs : http://docs.Google.com Free: collaborate on documents, spreadsheets
and presentations. Like we did with this.
Self Publishing. If we’re headed that way, here’s what you need to know.
Blogging Platforms and Resources - How do I get started?
Blogger.com - http://blogger.com Free, easy, the original (other than HTML blogs of the
late 1990’s.) Owned by Google.
WordPress - http://wordpress.com and http://wordpress.org The ORG site is free and
allows you to host your blog there. Similar to Blogger in approach and use. Better
designs and functions, but still locked into a set or rules. If you want to run your own
blog - see http://jeffcutler.com/jeff or http://bowlofcheese.com - those are both WP blogs
hosted on another site. I have complete freedom to adjust the images and the widgets
and other content as I see fit.

13. There’s also TypePad (paid service) and LiveJournal, and a few other minor blogging
platforms.
Google Analytics - https://www.google.com/analytics is one of the best ways to see
what’s happening.
Technorati - http://technorati.com another blog-focused way to track your site’s
popularity.
SiteMeter - http://sitemeter.com An alternative to Google. I use both on my site. Google
Analytics isn't real time. SiteMeter is and, for a bit more, is even more robust.
Statcounter.com - http://statcounter.com is another choice when looking for realtime
stats on your blog traffic.
Pull information together:
Yahoo Pipes: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/ Pull together multiple feeds into one source.

14. Place blogger: http://placeblogger.com/ Find blogs based on location.
Sites that may put your boss out of business (or who you may be working
for in the future)
AKA: New and experimental news web sites
The Batavian: http://thebatavian.com/
AnnArbor.comhttp://www.annarbor.com/
Patch.com: N.J. and Conn.http://www.patch.com/
The Daily Dust: http://www.thedailydust.co.uk/ All British all the time.

15. Know it all. Seriously.
Tools to help you dig deep into the Web and some resources that you should know.
http://www.metafilter.com/ Got a question? Someone has probably already answered it
here. A community blog with tons of information.
http://usernamecheck.com - Protect and acquire your name on most new media
services
http://www.lifehack.org/ - if they can’t teach you how to do something, you can’t be
taught
http://lifehacker.com/ - ditto
http://addictomatic.com - all the crap on any topic you want to search for. It’s
AWESOME
http://alltop.com/ - Magazine and info aggregator courtesy of Guy Kawasaki

16. http://www.dogpile.com/ - Comprehensive search
http://www.ireport.com/ - News
http://bit.ly/ - URL Shortener with analytics and stats
http://www.propeller.com/ - News
http://www.mixx.com/ - News
http://www.newsvine.com/ - News
http://delicious.com/ - Popular topics and news
http://www.reddit.com/- Popular topics and news
http://www.stumbleupon.com/- Popular topics, blogs and news
http://mashable.com/ - Technology and social media topics of the day
http://buzz.yahoo.com/ - Popular topics and news

17. http://digg.com/- Popular topics and news
http://yelp.com - Food reviews for nearly any restaurant in any area
http://www.eventbrite.com/ - Event signup and listing service. Great to see what
professional events are happening where.
http://www.bing.com - Microsoft's latest foray into the search engine marketplace. It's
good, but as the acronym connotes.... Bing Is Not Google (BING).
http://www45.wolframalpha.com/ - Semantic Web Search
http://www.hakia.com/ - Other Semantic Web Search
http://www.mahalo.com/ - Human-powered Web Search

18. Traditional Sources....all the rest.
Library of Congress
Centers for Disease Control
Census Bureau
CIA Library
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Bureau of Justice Statistics
Drug Enforcement Administration

19. ICE
Criminal Searches
Supreme Court of the U.S.
Edgar
Google Maps
Google Earth
Google Alerts
The Smoking Gun
WhoIS
Wikipedia (Use with caution. Great starting point)

20. Newspaper Association of America (great way to find local papers)
Thanks for listening and watching and trying to keep up.
Send your comments and great sites you’ve found to us...
Jeff Cutler
jeff@jeffcutler.com or @jeffcutler on Twitter
Ron Sylvester
ronald.sylvester@gmail.com or @rsylvester on Twitter