I’m often asked how I keep up with new media trends. Here’s a simple rule to keep in mind: “People interested in creating new, transparent and modular forms of communication are usually documenting it somewhere online.”

A great example of this is Slideshare.net. A “YouTube for Powerpoint,” Slideshare.net plays host to a number of presentations given at top web conferences around the world, like South By Southwest Interactive, and Enterprise 2.0.

(Slideshare.net also allows you to upload PDFs, so the possibilities for embedding it in your own site are pretty limitless.)

Many presentations can be understood without the accompanying speaker. Others will give me just enough information to go Googling for more. I will often add the blogs of useful speakers to my RSS feeds, or add them as contacts in my other social networks.

Here are some recent finds of merit.

Can Social Networking Build Your Brand?

This presentation gives a fairly cogent answer to the question, How can I use social networking and viral marketing to build my brand?

Bottom up Tagging

This presentation will be most valuable for those already familiar with the concepts of tagging, folksonomy and taxonomy. [Web.aan.org on Folksonomies.] It provides some valuable diagrams that explain the value of tagging from the escalation of personal to social.

[Editor’s note: This blog post is the first by Cathy Resmer, online editor for Seven Days. Read more about her on our About the Authors page. Welcome to web.aan.org, Cathy!]

I don’t make many videos, so I don’t use video-sharing sites for my own personal content.

But last November, it dawned on me that I should start monitoring sites like YouTube to find out how other Vermonters are using it. I started by searching for “Vermont,” but have since branched out to look for other things, too, like the names of cities, “Burlington,” “Montpelier,” etc. Or better yet, the names of colleges, i.e. “University of Vermont,” or “UVM” (YouTubers might use one but not the other) “Middlebury College,” etc. College kids are tech-savvy and have time on their hands, so they make many videos.

I found so much material that I created a separate category for local YouTube clips on my blog, called “Vermont YouTube of the Day,” which, despite its name, is not updated daily. I do my YouTube searching at least once a week or so, which — given the flow of material in this somewhat technologically backward state — is generally enough time to stay on top of what’s out there (or at least to keep up with what people have tagged and want found).

Here are some examples of how we’ve used this material:

• When Vermont had a record blizzard over Valentine’s Day, I found a bunch of blizzard videos on YouTube (more here, and here). I posted them on my blog, then promoted the post in our weekly email newsletter, which generated more traffic.
• I found this video of librarian author/blogger Jessamyn West installing open-source operating system Ubuntu on rural library computers. After I posted it to my blog, I submitted it to Boing Boing and they actually posted it — Cory Doctorow ended up referring to Jessamyn as an “internet folk-hero.” The BB post generated a publicity blip for Jessamyn (and a bunch of web traffic for me). Jessamyn ended up getting a call from the Ubuntu people, who sent her CDs to help her install Ubuntu elsewhere.
• A few weeks ago, I found a video in which a Vermont guy claimed to have found the world’s largest strawberry. I sent him a message via YouTube, our food writer got in touch with him, and then interviewed him in her story about strawberries this week.
• Some anti-war activists called us the other day to tell us about an action at a video gaming center in town. We couldn’t do a story, but I happened to find this YouTube clip of their protest and blogged about it.
• Someone who knew I was interested in Vermont YouTube videos emailed me this 802 Music Video. I posted it, and within a few weeks, it was picked up by other local media. The NY Times eventually ran a story about it, and NPR interviewed these kids. The governor’s press secretary even chimed in to say the guv had seen it. I’m not sure if my original blog post had anything to do with spreading the word, but as far as I can tell, I was the first media person to pick up on them. Last week, those kids did another video, about global warming (they called it the CO2 Music Video), which urges Democratic legislators to override the governor’s veto on an energy bill.
• Over the past few months, I’ve noticed that there are tons of local kateboarding videos on YouTube. I passed this info on to one of our writers, who’s working on a cover story about local skate culture, and he’s referencing some of the videos in his story. We may also be embedding some of the videos on the site with our story.
• Because we don’t have the money or time to build our own flash player yet, we have our vlogger post her weekly Stuck in Vermont vlog on YouTube. YT has featured her videos on its main page in the past (which generates thousands more views — too bad we haven’t been able to make much money off it… yet).
• Occasionally I find stuff that is just weird and funny and fun to watch. Our readers rely on us to find good local bands that fly under the radar — I think they also want us to tell them about stuff like this. And this. And this.

Anybody else have other ideas/concerns/stories to share?

DO YOUR E-HOMEWORK

Prof. Sree Sreenivasan of Columbia Journalism School shares his reading list for his students - a shortcut of need-to-know concepts, people, daily must-reads and more: The Changing Media Landscape

MUSIC COPYRIGHT FEES TO GO UP, UP, UP?

Via Freepress.net: “All ‘webcasters,’ nonprofit and for-profit, small and large, face a massive hike in the royalties they pay every time they play a song.”

Yikes - this could impact alts’ ability to offer music on their sites. If you’re interested, FreePress.net has a petition to sign to stop the rate hikes.

GET A FREE BOOK, MAYBE LEARN SOMETHING

“News, Improved: How America’s Newsrooms are Learning to Change” is the title of a new book by Michele McLellan and Tim Porter. A free copy is available to folks who take a survey at NewsU.org, Poynter’s interactive learning portal.

OREGONIAN POSTS THEIR PICTURES TO FLICKR

As reported by JoeThinks.com, Oregon’s daily is posting their staff images to their Flickr account - along with a link to the story in question. It’s a novel idea to drive traffic from the active Flickr community.
Steal this idea, but do it better…

• Be an active part of the Flickr community. Create contacts for your paper’s account - most of the time, those folks will add you as a contact too.
• Share your images with multiple groups on Flickr - people browsing group content will see your pictures, increasing the click-thru opportunities to your site.

[via Journerdism.com]

Stumbled on a great link others should know about?

Email it to laurafries [at] aan [dot] org.