The Web as a Visual Design Medium

The emergence of multimedia storytelling

What is multimedia storytelling? The Online Journalism Review describes multimedia storytelling (MMS) as a form of journalism that "uses some combination of text, still photos, animated, graphics, video and audio, presented in a nonlinear format in which all of the information in the elements are non-redundant - a very different form of storytelling." The web reader is in complete control of navigation--what he or she sees and hears; the user chooses which part of the story he or she wants to access and in what order. Why is this different from TV or radio? Why is it better? Read further.

John Allsopp (CSS Editor Style Master, co-founder of the Web Essentials Conference Series) suggests there is no “big bang” in new media; new medium emerge from their ancestors: cinema to stage, TV from radio, Web from print, etc. As opposed to print, radio, or TV which just expose the user to the news, MMS incorporates all of the elements and allows the user freedom. It is non-linear in that the elements complement each other as opposed to a picture in a newspaper that just accompanies the feature story.

Think of the homepage as the shell that provides background on the issue (education, crime, politics, etc.); within this shell are layers: audio, video, graphics--each telling their own part of the story. It offers the immediacy and intimacy that has made the other media so popular. Below are two great examples of MMS.



The Ancient Way is named for a remote route to Santiago de Compostela travelled by religious pilgrims and tourists. The Ancient Way is a metaphor for a way of life being lost as the youth move away, leaving the lands and traditions of their ancestors. The goal of the site is to share the stories of people along the way. Notice the shell and its contents. The user may navigate using the story links on the left. Links include titles like, "Nothing else for me to do," "Music is in our blood," and "Wild horses and celebration."



Ten Years On showcases stories from the "New South Africa" since the dismantling of Apartheid; its goal is to show how life has changed since 1994. The user navigates by clicking on images representative of topics including women, housing, integration, youth, music, economics, and insights. http://tenyearson.org

What makes a good multimedia story? The best stories are multidimensional--where face-to-face sources, action for video, and strong emotion can be seen or heard.

Annotated Resources

Multimedia Reporting and Convergence http://journalism.berkeley.edu/multimedia/
Educational website for reporters to learn how to create multimedia stories. All of the elements are discussed (video, audio, etc.). Includes tutorials for novice storytellers/reporters. University of CA Berkeley.

Online Journalism Review http://www.ojr.org/ For the development and continuing education of professional online journalists. Offers resources to evaluate the emerging field of online journalism; provides readers commentary and features pertinent to the growing field of online journalism. University of Southern CA Annenberg School for Communication.

PoynterOnline: Everything you need to be a better journalist http://www.poynter.org/
Provides an abundance of journalism related information (writing/editing, design, photojournalism) and includes a variety of articles on multimedia storytelling and the multimedia experience. Poynter.org.

Do special search tools make you shout, “Yahoo!?”

In today’s quest for information, it is imperative that researchers find fast, accurate facts at the click of a mouse. Whether you are a journalist, an educator, a lawyer or other professional, your reputation and that of your organization relies on your ability to conduct scholarly research and deliver appropriate content. With the advent of the Internet and all the many capabilities associated with it, it is sometimes difficult to decide where to search and what tools to use.

Most users are familiar with the mighty search engines dominating the Internet: Google http://www.google.com, Yahoo http://www.yahoo.com, and MSN http://www.msn.com; they are amazing in their ability to find and sort general information; however, there is a wealth of more specific data available via other providers (special search engines) that not only display the desired results but do so in a manner that targets the needs of the user. One such tool is Find.com. Here I will compare Yahoo! Search with Find.com http://www.find.com.

Yahoo! Media Relations http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/overview.html says their product is “the only place anyone needs to go find anything, communicate with anyone, or buy anything.” It provides a comprehensive network of essential services for Web users around the globe as well as businesses of all sizes. They also claim that Yahoo! was the first online navigational guide to the Web; regardless of that fact, seniority does not mean that Yahoo! is the best tool for searching. Yahoo! Search is great for general searching; I won’t deny them that. A person can search the Web, retrieve images or video, or search for local or global news. Yahoo! offers an advanced Web search where a person can specify their search by exact phrasing or Boolean logic, update, site/domain, file format, country, or language.

Find.com http://www.find.com is a business search and aims to improve the quality of business professionals’ work. Find.com’s results are “targeted to business needs and are presented in a manner that speeds navigation.” The search retrieves documents from all major consumer search engines and combines them with access to Premium Research content from leading Business Information sources. Find.com’s results page is a bit different from that of Yahoo! The default view will show results related to your query from Premium Research providers in the top panel and the open Web in the lower panel. You may click on any of the Tabs at the top of the results page to view Web-only, Research-only, related Directory results or related News results. What I like best about Find.com is that the results have been “handpicked” by Find.com for their information reliability. You can click on the original source or choose a functional view which shows keyword highlighting. Find.com also provides a cluster bar that organizes information by Topic, Format, Site (the web site URLs) or Source (Premium Research, Search Engines). If you still can’t find the info you’re looking for, you can start a new search by subcategory or refine your original search.

When I was an undergrad in the Technical and Professional Communication program at East Carolina http://core.ecu.edu/engl/tpc/tekkom/tpc.htm, I researched issues in technical writing (ad nauseam). I had access to general search engines, but at the time, I was unaware of special search tools such as Find.com. To prove their usefulness, I decided to relive those days. Upon searching for the phrase “technical writing rules” using Yahoo!, my result page listed around 257 results. Many on the first and second page were useful, but after the third page, my excitement diminished (as it usually does with general search engines). Many of the results were irrelevant or advertising-related. The same search using Find.com produced only ten results (some repeats), which I have to admit was a little disappointing, but they were ALL relevant and reliable. In hindsight, this would have saved me time seven years ago.

It is obvious to me that special search tools are the way to go if you are searching for specific information pertinent to your field of study or career. Find.com is geared for the business professional, and there are many others that cater to scientists, lawyers, etc. In conclusion, if you are a general searcher looking for general information, use a general search engine. If you are looking to narrow your search and save time and energy (who isn’t?), then you’ll find what you’re looking for at Find.com.

Aggregators not aggravators!

Aggregators: Getting What You Ask For

For those of you that spend entirely too much time searching for online news that matters to you, consider using an aggregator to get the latest on…well…just about anything. Aggregators do not simply list headlines; they collect news that caters to YOU, like a personal newspaper—or even better, like waking up to your favorite correspondent who says, “Good morning! Here’s the news you asked for.”

According to the popular free Web encyclopedia, Wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org, aggregators (or news aggregators) are a type of computer program that collects syndicated Web content, such as RSS and other XML feeds from weblogs, podcasts, vlogs, and mainstream mass media websites. Don’t know what the afore-mentioned are? No problem. Aggregators filter them looking for the news you want.

First, many Internet users made the transition from print news to online news in an effort to combine energies and conserve time. Now the overburdened and overwhelmed turn to these search tools to cut out yet another step of the daunting process. Where to start, you might ask? Take a look at Yahoo! News and Topix.net.

Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/
Any avid Internet user has heard of Yahoo! It’s reliable and notable. Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/ is extremely user-friendly and provides headlines on subjects in the following categories: top stories, most popular, world, US National, politics, business, science, technology, health, entertainment, sports, opinion, and even odd news. The homepage can be customized by changing the layout or adding or removing these news categories. The reader can save time if he or she chooses by clicking on the most viewed/emailed or most recommended stories.

Aside from choosing content and customizing the homepage, the reader can do a basic search for news or conduct an advanced Web search. The search results page is based on the look and feel of the standard front page of Yahoo! The reader can easily toggle through general and targeted results as well as view “breadcrumbs,” which show where a story was found. Yahoo! News crawls over 7,000 news sources in 35 languages and provides access to archived articles via Reuters and the Associated Press. These archives are stored for two weeks; some other sources are stored for varying lengths of time, anywhere from seven days to one month. Additional archives can be purchased as part of Yahoo! News Premium from $1.50-2.50 per article.

For confident searchers, Yahoo! offers advanced search options; the reader can limit results by exact phrases, update, site or domain, file format, filtered, location, language, or subscription.

Topix.net http://www.topix.net/
Another useful, but not as well known aggregator, is Topix.net http://www.topix.net/. The fact that the average surfer may be unaware of Topix is surprising because it is the largest news site on the Internet. If you like living on the wild side or would simply like a break from the same old searching routine, try Topix. The interface is user-friendly though a bit “busier” than that of Yahoo! It offers many of the same news features and additional subcategories including arts, autos, business, companies, medication, food, gadgets, hobbies, and law—just to name some. The list seems endless, with up to 300,000 topics available. Top stories cover the page, but the news can be searched by zip code, city, or subject. Advanced search methods include time range, source (for example: CNN, Newsday, Fox Sports, etc.), category, or location.

For the Internet savvy, Topix offers free news feed to other webmasters as well as commercial news feeds for a subscription fee (price dependent on customization). The top nine headlines from any Topix page are available for those who prefer to read their news via RSS.

There is really no downside to using news aggregators. You subscribe and view at your leisure; you unsubscribe when you choose. Whether it’s Yahoo!, Topix.net, or one of the many others, take the plunge! Let go of some of that burden! Let aggregators do the work for you.

On accepting others

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.~G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

Chaos

Do you ever have those days?