Google Opens Up 'Living Stories' to One and All

Declaring its "Living Stories" experiment with The New York Times and The Washington Post a success, Google Thursday made the technology available to any news organization.

Read More at Editor and Publisher.

Gamers Scarier than Bikies

The South Australian Attorney General told ABC TV's Good Game, "I feel that my family and I are more at risk from gamers than we are from the outlaw motorcycle gangs who also hate me and are running a candidate against me." According to the The New Zealand Herald "Mr Atkinson was involved in introducing tough new laws to outlaw bikie gangs in South Australia several years ago...
Australia is the only Western country without an adult rating for games. Mr Atkinson has been the most vocal opponent of introducing one and has the power to veto changes to the classification system."

Read more at the New Zealand Herald.

Record Number of Journalists Killed in 2009

The Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 71 journalists were killed in 2009. That's the most deaths in the 30 years the group has been keeping track. Twenty-nine of those deaths came in a election-related ambush of reporters and others in the Philippines.

China had the most journalists incarcerated at 24 with Iran close behind with 23. Since then, the number of jailed journalists in Iran has jumped to 47.

Read more at the New York Times.

Nashville is Talking’ no more

One of the earliest "examples of a station partnering with its local blogosphere, has closed down" according to Lost Remote. Nashville is Talking was started in 2005, when WKRN’s hired a local blogger to staff the original site. But it didn’t "meet the economic needs of its owners," Young Broadcasting.

"It’s ironic" since "in today’s fire hose of content known as the Web" local media companies are "discussing ways to make money locally via the Web, and friendship with local bloggers seems to be high on everybody’s agenda."

Read more at Lost Remote.

Some Newsrooms Persist in Costly Fight for Records

The big media company Hearst says it has never had more First Amendment lawsuits in courtrooms around the country than it does now.

During 2009, the Associated Press was party to 40 lawsuits (four years earlier it was the low 30s) and the news agency appealed more than 40 denied FOIA. requests. Nearly 30 have been resolved, 24 successfully including one about the cash-for-clunkers program. It resulted in 13,000 pages being released and posted on the Web.

Another big media company, Hearst, says it had 18 litigations under way — its most ever.

Read more at the New York Times.

Beefing Up Banner Ads

The first Web banner ad ran in October 1994 for AT&T on Hot Wired. Now, a "new Web ad architecture is developing... to allow advertisers to show each ad only to the audience they want... fueled by vast amounts of Internet user data."

Advertisers can hook into a half dozen or more exchanges with a set price they are willing to pay for a particular audience -- i.e., that male 18-35 who is interested in traveling to Las Vegas... when a user arrives at a page... It trolls through the bids to find the best match for the user." Although "only a small portion of Web advertising goes through such systems" Forrester Research forecasts that 30 percent of online advertising will flow through such marketplaces by the end of 2010."

Google has "the DoubleClick Ad Exchange" while "Yahoo is retooling its Right Media ad exchange to offer real-time bidding. Microsoft is expected to launch its AdECN real-time exchange in the coming months."

These types of systems could soon hit a snag because "Industry leaders like the Interactive Advertising Bureau warn that regulators could soon put restrictions on how consumer information is collected and used in advertising."

Read more at AdWeek.

Local TV for Devices on the Move

Broadcasters have lost a quarter of their audience in the last decade. But the New York Times reports there is hope. 30 stations in major cities have installed "the necessary equipment at a cost of $75,000 to $150,000" to allow "access TV on a cellphone, on a laptop or in the car is a game changer for local broadcasters. It will provide a renaissance for over-the-air broadcast TV." The ATSC Mobile DTV Standard will allow local stations to charge more for commercials. "The mobile devices must catch a special signal, a slice of the broadcast frequency, and software processes it to display a clear picture on the go... The devices must be within about 60 miles of a broadcast tower for a picture as clear as the television at home."

"The Mobile DTV standard also allows for two-way communication. When viewing an ad, a viewer may push a button to see more information or have it sent by e-mail. The system can also be used for voting, polling and audience measurement. Mobile TV devices with GPS function could also feed location-specific ads."

Read more at the New York Times.