@DNA2008: CNN releases beta of new iReport UGC site

Posted by Martin Stabe on 4 March 2008 at 08:53
Tags: CNN, Citizen journalism, citizenjournalism

CNN has released a beta version of iReport.com, the second phase of its user-generated content submission tool, iReport.

Unlike the iReport user-submission tool that the international news channel launched 18 months ago, the new site is largely community-modernated.

A full launch of the service is due later this month, CNN business development director Chris Press told the Digital News Affairs conference in Brussels.

In its first 18 months, CNN’s existing iReport tool has received 100,000 reports, including video from the Virginia Tech shootings, the Burmese uprising and the Minneapolis bridge collapse, Press said.

But because all the content is vetted before being published on CNN.com or on CNN television, Press said, only about 10 per cent of iReport submissions are actually used on CNN.

“Nine out of 10 people were disappointed”, he said. The new site, however, will primarily be is designed to resolve that by creating a site linked to but clearly distinct from CNN’s editorial content.

Horrocks: Only 1 per cent of BBC audience contributes; UGC value apparent only when filtered

Posted by Martin Stabe on 9 January 2008 at 09:09
Tags: BBC, citizenjournalism

Head of BBC newsroom Peter Horrocks has argued that user generated has “brought a valuable additional aspect to our journalism”, but points out that only a tiny proportion of the audience contributes and the the real value of comments, user-generated content, and citizen journalism only becomes apparent when journalists can find the most valuable of these contributions.

On the BBC blog The Editors, Horrocks has posted the transcript of a speech that he gave to the Institute of Communication Studies in Leeds on the value of “citizen journalism”, a term which he uses interchangably with “user-generated content”.

“[T]he somewhat messianic and starry-eyed way in which public participation journalism is argued for needs some very careful consideration,” Horrocks argued. “And there are many different aspects of such journalism, with varying degrees of value.”

The BBC received between 10,000 to 20,000 e-mails or posts a day on its Have Your Say site — a figure that represents less than 1 per cent of users of the BBC News web site, Horrocks says. As a result, the BBC is having to carefully consider how to deal with this input from a relatively small minority.

Horrock’s long talk raises several very interesting and important points. A recurring theme, though, is that robust filtering — when journalists are able to sort the wheat from the chaff — is essential to maximising the editorial value of user contributions.

Following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Horrocks recounts, the BBC received many anti-Islamic messages on its Have Your Say forums. Horrocks says he believes these comments were far from representative of the overall audience views, that they had “very little” value and influenced the BBC’s coverage “hardly at all”.

“Buried amongst the comments however, rarely recommended by others, were insights from those who had met Benazir or knew her. And there were valuable eye witness comments from people who were at the scene in Rawalpindi,” he writes.

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YouTube launching UGC video gongs

Posted by Martin Stabe on 19 March 2007 at 12:39
Tags: Awards, Citizen journalism, YouTube, citizenjournalism

YouTube is setting up awards for the best user created videos of 2006.

The Google-owned video sharing site will hand out trohies to the creators of videos in seven  catories: most creative, most inspirational, best series, best comedy, musician of the year, best commentary and “most adorable video ever”.

A channel of nominated videos picked by YouTube is set to launch today. It will allow usrs to vote on the nominees for all of this week, in time for the winner to be announced on 25 March.

Linking the awards to YouTube’s current legal troubles with Viacom, Reuters’  Eric Auchard quips: “One category missing from the YouTube awards is ‘Best Professionally Produced Copyrighted Video.’”