A Web editor's tale

A key ideal and admission for all news organisations: all your content, everything that has your name on it should adhere to the same high standards of production and maintenance – and that includes social media.

Everything is equal across the digital landscape, nothing should be given less consideration.

Any content you publish, whether it’s re-purposing from print, or collected from digital sources, should still have a quality stamp from your organisation:

“Until now, we spoke about ElPais.com when we were referring to online content. But in this new age, we’re dropping the “.com” and the whole El Pais newsroom is working, regardless of the platform where content is published – in print, on the web, on mobile or tablets – to the same standards of quality and rigour,” declared the paper, as it unveiled the new design, “El Pais is El Pais, no matter where you read it.”

From SFN Blog – Website redesign reflects new newsroom philosophy at El Pais by Hannah Vinter

Updated 5 April 2012:  Some useful applications to get started creating, broadcasting, storing and sharing content from an Android smartphone for journalists and the like, many have iOS/Apple  counterparts:

General tools

Dropbox – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dropbox.android send/store files securely, along with DropSync for erm, syncing – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ttxapps.dropsync

Astrid Task/to-do lists – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.timsu.astrid, can sync with Google Tasks, recently updated, still fairly intuitive.

Wunderlist, for task organising,  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wunderkinder.wunderlistandroid (thanks @chrismccormack1)

Evernote – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.evernote note taking/storing with Evernote account, with addons for taking audio notes and drawings.

Power Note – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.diigo.android which syncs your bookmarks with your diigo.com account.

Google Docs – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.docs open/write/share documents using Google account.

Adobe PDF Reader – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.adobe.reader.

Google Translate – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.translate.

Google Maps – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.maps and Google Maps StreetView – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.street.

Flashlight for when, it’s erm, dark, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intellectualflame.ledflashlight.washer  (thanks @chrismccormack1)

Browsers

• Opera Mini - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.opera.mini.android is the best browser I’ve used, pretty quick, enable sending/sharing links etc.
• A close second is the Dolphin HD browser, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.mgeek.TunnyBrowser which. now has it’s sonar speech search tool.

Social media

• Twitter‘s own native app is not the worst option https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.twitter.android
• There’s it’s new family member, Tweetdeck – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.thedeck.android.app
• Seesmic works pretty well as an alternative,  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.seesmic (thanks @Ed_Walker86_
• TweetCaster  has plenty of options for sharing/managing found links and information - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.handmark.tweetcaster

Multimedia

• Adobe Photoshop Express – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.adobe.psmobile for photo editing or Quick Pic – https://market.android.com/details?id=com.alensw.PicFolder.
• Photoaf Panorama: very nice, quick (in my experience), simple and good quality way to create 360º panoramic views http://www.photaf.com/.
• Bambuser can broadcast/stream decent quality live video, shareable  and give you a finished flv file https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bambuser.broadcaster
• Record My Call - http://www.appbrain.com/app/record-my-call/com.record.my.call
• Skype for phone and video calls, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skype.raider  (thanks @chrismccormack1)
  See also: Journalism.co.uk article: Ten fantastic apps, tips and tools for recording audio

By no means an exhaustive list, I don’t claim to have used every app in depth, but they all have high ratings and/or are backed by reputable developers/brands.

Further reading

• http://www.mobilemediatoolkit.org/
• http://onlinejournalismblog.com/category/mobile-phone-news/
• including:  What does a mobile journalist need? from October 2009, but still some good points worth noting.
• http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/category/mobile/

Originally published 31 August, 2011

Following the riots across England this week, Peterborough, like many towns and cities I’ll bet was awash via social media with rumour, suggestion and misinformation about potential disturbances in the city. Here’s how we handled that through our Twitter coverage:

Andy Dickinson makes lots of good points (here is my discussion with Andy on his article) on Twitter’s evolution for news organisations, suggesting via a tweet:

August 8, 2011 10:21 pm

Reporting that nothing is happening in your area/city? ask yourself is that really news.

@digidickinson

But I feel there’s a balance to be had here and saying no news is not a valid reason for Tweeting is not always fair. If as an official local news source on Twitter you’re seeing multiple tweets asking/predicting/suggesting there’s rioting or other event not actually taking place, at some point there is a duty to respond (it would be ideal to include all those Tweeters but with a 140 character limit, that’s not always realistic).

At the @PeterboroughET we took the policy of limiting our updates and retweeting local police (who were pretty on the ball with their updates) where possible to add weight to our information. Verification has always been key with Twitter, along with sifting and filtering sources and tip-offs, all part of regular news process, they are just magnified on social networks.

It would have been easy to respond to all those concerned locals individually (plenty of them genuine) and getting directly involved with those seemingly deliberately misinforming regarding potential or imagined riots in our area, that would best be served by a linked rolling story enabling longer coverage, but we took the view initially that publishing anything on our website would be fueling a non-existent fire.

This partly relates to the issue of resource, whether we spent much time on such a non-story, a vital issue especially for stretched local news teams, but mobile/web apps enable social media monitoring and interaction without being necessarily on duty or in the office, enabling news teams to react more quickly to events such as this.

It’s all part of the learning curve of Twitter for news orgs, which becomes more difficult as your following audience grows, but the benefits of being able to quickly inform, collaborate and communicate still outweigh its negatives.

A few thoughts sparked by an article ‘Guardian part 2: What are engaged users REALLY worth?’ by the Wannabe Hacks:

Speaking from the point of view of a local daily newspaper website… All visitors have value, but they visit for different reasons. and they have become a disparate bunch, Twitter followers, Facebook likers, registered commenting site visitors etc. Different strategies are needed for each group.

Big reasons for staying/returning to the site: quality and relevance of content to visitor’s interests – as it always has been. Good quality journalism has long term value, celebrity stories have high short-term value.

Many people visit but never comment or interact on news websites, should we force these people to register? If they are a large but loyal number then I think the potential loss of audience is too great. If your publications voice is only being heard by a small minority how can consensus or influence be maintained?

Clamoring for the largest audience must be tempered with not overlooking delivering what your target audience want, be that subject or geographically based. If you’re not doing that then you’ll have little chance of moneting the audience.

The data on registered users though has huge long-term value, knowing what they look at, where they came from, their journey through your site, enables tailoring related content and commercial offers to them and justifying changes to your site structure.

There’s nothing wrong with commercial elements alongside quality content, but if it has relevance to the user, then there’s clearly more revenue potential and everybody wins!

In short, a very difficult area, a fine-line to be trodden through making enough money to pay for quality of content and product whilst keeping a strong, loyal audience and not driving them away with over-bearing commercial strategies.

In terms of skills, SEO and understanding how content works in a digital environment is vital to all editorial staff. Being able to judge how and when to add keywords and phrases into headlines/intros, compacting a story into a Tweet and other web-based copywriting and sub-editing is a hugely valuable skill-set.

The live blog is an opportunity to curate multimedia content and information from professional and non-professional sources ‘on the ground’, using editorial judgement in what to publish.

It’s a great collaborative tool for news organisations to cover major or breaking events, conferences or big issues using mobile tools and central monitoring to coordinate interactive content publishing, the audience then have the power to feed into the live stream and feel part of the process.

A live blogging strategy

As an example strategy, setup a CoverItLive blog and promote across all your platforms in advance where possible, setup initial questions if possible. Get all your journalist involved using Twitter, all their feeds can be added to the live blog, collectively creating the live blog stream without any other action required in its most basic form.

A manager can monitor the live blog, adding user comments and any related tweets as well as multimedia content and polls into the stream.

Specific Twitter hashtag feeds can be used if appropriate to integrate information from members of the public who may be at the scene and let the audience follow via Twitter if they prefer.

When to use a live blog

It has its place when suitable situations arise or events break as an important digital media publishing strategy that shows what can be achieved coupling journalistic skill and citizen knowledge with readily available digital publishing tools.

Editing and curating is a vital part of the operation, but this is clearly a different area of journalism from reflective, objective long-form pieces that would follow-up online and in print, but all have their value to the audience.

It’s just a new opportunity in a multimedia, multiplatform publishing world.

Further reading:

• Tips on tweeting live by Mary Hamilton – advice on choosing hashtags, sources and curation
• Twitter for journalists: beyond gathering and distributing content
• Styles of live blog: Guardian, New York Times, BBC, FT – Andy Bull, multimedia-journalism.co.uk

Crowd Blur by jonicdao - flickr.com/photos/jonicdao

Crowdsourcing is a means of involving/collaborating with the audience in the newsgathering and storybuilding process. It can be useful in gaining a consensus of opinion or locating a knowledgeable source on a subject. It’s not suitable in every situation, but a strategy should be in place should an opportunity arise:

Once the bare bones of a print story are  in place, when you have the basic facts: what, where, when; and if it’s not an exclusive, get a story live and start gaining some consensus from your audience.

Create a short intro focusing on a talking point, something that will affect local people, attempt to engage public opinion through an active voice.

If story or feature is in its early stages and relates to a local issue, national issue with likely local effects or recent event that members of local community are even possibly likely to have an opinion on, push a short description of the story and ask for feedback. Remember even a small niche community group may have strong opinions.

In headline use “Add specific content keywords…” to alert potential interested readers, then timestamp the intro “10.20am: Story in brief…” to highlight the current nature and tell readers as story develops.

Keep body of the story short and to the point, just facts, then encourage witnesses/locals/those with knowledge to interact and engage.

Add a ‘call to action’ question, “What do you think about this proposal/change?” or “Have you been affected by this” then list ways to contact the news team. e.g.:

How has the event affected you? What can be done…?
Comment below, email news@yourpaper.co.uk, interact at yourpaper.co.uk/yoursay or discuss via Twitter @yourTweets

Further reading:

• 10 things that have been crowdsourced in 2011
• Lessons in crowdsourcing: Claire Wardle on using Ushahidi for the Tube strike | Online Journalism Blog
• Crowdsourcing a Better World – NYTimes.com
• 10 Tips « Crowdsourcing: A Fieldguide from WNYC
• Spot.us

Clay Shirky comments on paywalls in particular News Corp’s Times paywall and disclosure of audience statistics. How do we get people to pay for news on a digital platform? It’s never going to be easy, especially being one of the first like The Times, they must be applauded at least for diving in.

But there are other models in along the lines of free, freemium, or hybrids of free and paid-for content. Though I think a ‘Great Wall’ style paywall may be a n extreme that would only work a for a few strong or highly niche/valuable brands.

Different titles with different audiences will need more experimentation before we all find our balanced strategy, playing off some level of charging for access against keeping a presence on the open web.

Quotes from the article:
Robert Andrews at PaidContent sees hope in the Times now having recurring user revenues.*
Mike Masnick at TechDirt believes those revenues are unlikely to offset new customer acquition costs and the loss of advertising.*
General-interest papers struggle to make paywalls work because it’s hard to raise prices in a commodity market. That’s the problem.
The web puts newspapers in competition with radio and TV stations, magazines, and new entrants, both professional and amateur. It is the war of each against all.
The advantage of paywalls is that they raise revenue from users. The disadvantages are that they reduce readership, increase customer acquistion and retention costs, and eliminate ad revenue from user-forwarded content. In most cases, the disadvantages have outweighed the advantages.
anyone advising newspapers will at some point say “All you need to do is offer a product so relevant and valuable the consumer is willing to pay for it!”
This advice is well-meaning. It’s just not much help.
merely a restatement of the problem, by way of admission that the current product does not pass that test.
Paywalls do indeed help newspapers escape commodification, but only by ejecting the readers who think of the product as a commodity. This is, invariably, most of them.
One way to think of this transition is that online, the Times has stopped being a newspaper, in the sense of a generally available and omnibus account of the news of the day
Instead, it is becoming a newsletter
the paywall creates newsletter economics.
If you are going to produce news that can’t be shared outside a particular community, you will want to recruit and retain a community that doesn’t care whether any given piece of news spreads, which means tightly interconnected readerships become the ideal ones. However, tight interconnectedness correlates inversely with audience size, making for a stark choice, rather than offering a way of preserving the status quo.
This re-engineering suggests that paywalls don’t and can’t rescue current organizational forms.

Shirky also adds comments:
“I agree with you that the Times is an unusual case in many ways, not least because it is embedded in a much larger and more diverse media empire. See, on this subject, Seamus McCauley’s terrific piece on the use of the Times as part of a larger “confusopoly” media war: “News Corp’s Paywall Is About News Corp, Not The Times” http://virtualeconomics.typepad.com/virtualeconomics/2010/11/news-corps-paywall-is-about-news-corp-not-the-times.html

I disagree that this makes the lessons of the Times paywall less relevant; in fact, the Times has two unusual cushions–a publisher who is willing to forgo some revenues in order to have influence, and a larger media empire for whom having the papers collect CC numbers may make it an atttractive source of up-selling and cross-selling. Papers that don’t have those cushions are likely to suffer more from a switch to paywalls.”

Quotes:

The Times’ Paywall and Newsletter Economics « Clay Shirky

• Robert Andrews at PaidContent sees hope in the Times now having recurring user revenues.*
• Mike Masnick at TechDirt believes those revenues are unlikely to offset new customer acquition costs and the loss of advertising.*
• General-interest papers struggle to make paywalls work because it’s hard to raise prices in a commodity market. That’s the problem.
• The web puts newspapers in competition with radio and TV stations, magazines, and new entrants, both professional and amateur. It is the war of each against all.
• The advantage of paywalls is that they raise revenue from users. The disadvantages are that they reduce readership, increase customer acquistion and retention costs, and eliminate ad revenue from user-forwarded content. In most cases, the disadvantages have outweighed the advantages.
• anyone advising newspapers will at some point say “All you need to do is offer a product so relevant and valuable the consumer is willing to pay for it!”
• This advice is well-meaning. It’s just not much help.
• merely a restatement of the problem, by way of admission that the current product does not pass that test.
• Paywalls do indeed help newspapers escape commodification, but only by ejecting the readers who think of the product as a commodity. This is, invariably, most of them.
• One way to think of this transition is that online, the Times has stopped being a newspaper, in the sense of a generally available and omnibus account of the news of the day
• Instead, it is becoming a newsletter
• the paywall creates newsletter economics.
• If you are going to produce news that can’t be shared outside a particular community, you will want to recruit and retain a community that doesn’t care whether any given piece of news spreads, which means tightly interconnected readerships become the ideal ones. However, tight interconnectedness correlates inversely with audience size, making for a stark choice, rather than offering a way of preserving the status quo.
• This re-engineering suggests that paywalls don’t and can’t rescue current organizational forms.

First published in The Peterborough Evening Telegraph newspaper, Friday 9th July 2010.

If you’ve ever driven out of the city along the A605 towards Northampton, you’ll have seen The Fox Inn standing boldly by the side of the road.
Situated in the 14th century village of Thorpe Waterville, the pub’s car park, exterior, kitchens and toilets have recently undergone a modern refurbishment.
Inside a modern open plan, light and airy décor creates a relaxed and welcoming ambiance.
We were seated in the restaurant, which for a Tuesday night, was relatively full, with a party amongst the diners.
The staff were friendly and attentive, and our three courses took 90 minutes, just about right in my opinion.
As a pub alone it features in the Good Pub Guide 2010 and offers Wells Eagle and Bombardier amongst other ales.
I plumped for an IPA at a reasonable £2.70 a pint, while my girlfriend who I’ll call Des (only once as it will lose it’s humour rapidly), as in designated driver, had a lime and soda.

The Fox Inn restaurant, Thorpe Waterville, Northamptonshire

The menu offered plenty of variety, all freshly cooked, plus set menu options, and for starters I went for the crispy duck spring roll, while my partner chose a grilled goat’s cheese salad from the set menu.
The spring roll was tasty and not too heavy, the accompanying salad was crisp and fresh, finished off with hoi sin sauce.
The goat’s cheese starter was equally good and made me frankly quite jealous, so we negotiated a small cross-table exchange, which can end in an embarrassing mid-table mess, but tonight the mission was a success, as was the goat’s cheese.
The portions throughout were just right, presentation was good, clean and simple.
For main I had the grilled fillet of sea bass, whilst my partner had the traditional fish and chips with mushy peas.
The bass came with new potatoes, broccoli and a mustard and cream sauce (normally served with basil pesto and salsa verde), which wasn’t too overpowering, whilst the fish was soft and well cooked.
The fish batter was light and crispy, with good chunky chips and mushy peas, which I can’t be doing with, but I’m told were good.
For dessert, as we were pleasantly full by this point, we shared a Baileys cheesecake, with warm chocolate sauce and kiwi fruit. The cheesecake was creamy, but light, which was complemented by the warm sauce.
Overall it was good value, our bill was only £42, a reasonable price for a good level of quality and service, enjoyed in a relaxed atmosphere.

4 out of 5

Restaurant information:

The Fox Inn, Thorpe Waterville, Northamptonshire, NN14 3ED
Open for breakfast from 10am, garden area, disabled access, caters for business meetings with wireless Internet access and projection facilities.
Phone for Reservations 01832 720274, website: www.foxinnthorpewaterville.co.uk

Menu samples:

All food is cooked freshly to order.

Starters/Appetisers

Soup of the Day £2.95
Garlic Mushrooms £4.95
Crispy Duck Spring Roll £5.95
Garlic Ciabatta £2.95
Whole Ciabatta and Marinated Olives £3.50
Crispy Whitebait in breadcrumbs £4.95
Pigeon Breast £5.95
King Prawns £7.95
Smoked Salmon £5.95
Bruschetta £4.95

Grill Selection

Meat Mixed Grill £13.95
gammon steak, rump steak, lamb chop, pork chop and pork sausage, served with hand cut chips, mushrooms, slow roasted tomatoes, onion rings
10 oz Sirloin Steak £12.95
served with hand cut chips, mushrooms, slow roasted tomatoes and onion rings
Gammon Steak £9.95
topped with fried egg, served with hand cut chips and onion rings

Main

Seafood Mixed Grill £14.95
Ask for Chef’s selection of the day served with garlic roast potato, broccoli, rich beurre blanc sauce
Grilled Fillet of Sea Bass £12.95
Served with buttered new potatoes, broccoli, basil pesto and salsa verde
Braised Pork belly with Crackling £11.95
Served with dauphinoise potato, caramelised apple. honey roast parsnips, wilted spinach and red wine sauce
Traditional Fish & Chips £8.95
Served with hand cut chips, mushy peas, tartare sauce and lemon wedge
Pot Roast Lamb Shank £11.95
Served with creamed mash potatoes, honey roast parsnips, wilted spinach and red wine sauce

Desserts

Brioche Bread and Butter Pudding £4.95
slices of brioche spread with apricot jam and served with warm custard
Baileys Cheesecake £4.95
served with kiwi fruit and chocolate sauce
Lemon Tart £4.95
served with crème fraiche and raspberry coulis
Chocolate Brownie £4.95
served with ice cream and chocolate sauce
Selection of Cheeses £5.95
served with celery, apple, grapes and biscuits

3 course set menu and party menus are available.

Details correct at 6th July 2010.

Inspired by the news:rewired conference, 14 January 2010

Communication to the Stars by Striking Photography by Bo on flickr.com

Making it part of a constructive and nutritious newsroom strategy

Updated, 22 March 2012: Twitter has become accepted by journalists as an opportunity for two-way communication, newsgathering and crowdsourcing, and as a key distribution tool in a fast-moving digital environment. But remember, Twitter is just a tool, like your phone, pen and paper or editorial content management system. It is not a guaranteed saviour of journalism, the answer to newsroom prayers or going to write a story for you – but it can definitely help, especially in an increasingly ‘digital first‘ news publishing environment.

As with any source Twitter information needs verifying, here are some tips from mediahelpingmedia.org, here Alex Murray gives an insight into BBC News’ verification processes, and here Mary Hamilton‘s nine ways to use Twitter responsibly following the UK riots of August 2011. It’s also worth remembering that even in 2012, with a proliferation of smartphones with seamless social media apps and after several high profile events having brought Twitter into the mainstream, whilst the numbers are growing steadily, not everyone is using it, and to varying degrees depending on location, probably only a small proportion of a local audience is tweeting. The key is having a realistic expectation and clear strategy that will dictate levels of success, as Paul Bradshaw puts it:

the tools should come after the strategies, and the strategy should come after the objective

So set some clear objectives on what you want Twitter to achieve for you, find out the most efficient and effective way of using it and then dive in, making sure to take a step back once in a while to see if your strategy is working and what and how others and peers are using social media tools. Plus the next time you go for a media-related job interview, it may well crop up as a question. So here are some tips and quotes I collated for my own local newspaper newsroom team:

• Sign up to Twitter: as an individual journalist, and be aware that what you say and do represents and reflects you and your news organisation.
• Remember: this is a professional, public-facing account backed by your news organisation’s brand.
• My advice on separate accounts for work/non-work tweeting has mellowed: get your own personal account if… what you do out of work is very specific/niche/completely different from your day job, and worth its own Twitterverse. Just make it clear it’s your own views and not those of any employer! Otherwise the odd personal comment or showing some personality does no harm. Read more advice in my curated discussion on storify: “Journalists on Twitter: 1 profile or 2?“
• Username suggestion: @yournameNewsOrg – needs to be short but memorable, doesn’t have to be strict, but make sure shortening any words doesn’t spell anything odd or inappropriate! – Read my related post on ‘Journalists on Twitter: 1 profile or 2?‘
• Add professional bio details, who you are, your news title, location, your local patch, what areas of content you cover.
• Inject some of your own personality into your Tweets, it will help people to ‘warm’ to you as a real person as opposed to just a reporter.
• If you make a mistake in a tweet, start a new one with “Correction:…”
• If you’re replying to someone, having their @profilename at the start means only followers of both of you would see it, if it’s something of mass-interest, use a full stop at the beginning to publish it to everyone, “.@localPeeps blah blah…”

Here is a good starting point listing Twitter basics: 10 Must-Learn Lessons For Twitter Newbies - www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/

What’s in it for you

Push: gain a following of interested, local people, share your stories and  ideas for stories. Pull:get feedback/comments/images and video, request help/opinion/information on upcoming stories and ongoing/upcoming events. It may take a while to get a substantial followering: stay enthusiastic, this will give you time to get used to the process, and find your own style.

Feb 2010: New director of BBC Global News Peter Horrocks commented: “Aggregating and curating content with attribution should become part of a BBC journalist’s assignment; and BBC’s journalists have to integrate and listen to feedback for a better understanding of how the audience is relating to the BBC brand. If you don’t like it… then go and do something else, because it’s going to happen. You’re not going to be able to stop it.” Source: Mashable.com

How to manage/tools

Make the process of updating Twitter quick, (here’s what I do): install Firefox or Chrome browser – quicker and more advanced than Internet Explorer, sign up to a bit.ly account (you can use a Twitter account), this will shorten long URL, and enable you to track how many people are clicking on your links.

Then when you want to send an update about your story, click on a link directly from Firefox to open your bitly account, ready for adding your message, it will automatically make and insert a short bit.ly URL of your story. Or use the AddThis Firefox extension or AddThis Google Chrome extension to create your Twitter ready short URL. There may well be sharing buttons on the page asthese are common on news websites.
Tools such as TwitterLocal, Trendsmap and Nearby Tweets help you find tweeps in your community. Try desktop, mobile or web-based apps: Tweetdeck, Seesmic, and Twitterfall (web) – ‘specialising in real-time tweet searches. New tweets fall into the page’.

See also by me:  Useful free Android apps for journalists - and: must have iphone apps for journalists by Anthony De Rosa, Ten fantastic apps, tips and tools for recording audio on journalism.co.uk

Tips on using Twitter and suggested tools: some quotes and notes –

• busy journalists facing too many demands in shrunken newsrooms can’t afford to let anything steal away too much of their day
• first a caveat: You need to invest some time learning to use Twitter and connecting with followers, primarily people in your community and colleagues who share your professional interests
• Some days Twitter will provide great value and be worth spending some time
• Tweet a few times each day. Your tweets don’t have to take much time, but they help you engage with colleagues and your community
• Check your “mentions.”
• Search your real name.
• Using this search and the mentions… engage any time someone is talking to me or about me, without constantly watching the whole stream
• Use Twitter as a news source
• Use a mobile Twitter app
• I would suggest snaptu.com, quick and straightforward to use if you’ve not an iPhone or Android enabled phone – richardkendall
• You can browse some tweets or fire off a quick tweet while walking to of from your car, while waiting for a meeting to start or riding an elevator or lift! – richardkendall
• paper.li  - organizes links shared on Twitter and Facebook into a newspaper-style format
• Twitter lists. Twitter lets you sort the people you follow
• Advanced Twitter search tips and example operators

Sarah Booker adds key points including:

• Monitor the activities and discussions in your community.
• Connect with colleagues and share ideas with them.
• “Crowdsource” stories by asking for story ideas or information.
• Quickly find people who witnessed or experienced an event.
• Drive traffic to your content.
• Improve your writing as you learn to make points directly in just 140 characters.

Further reading/viewing:

• Articles, insights and discussion on social media and journalism from BBC’s Social Media Summit – #bbcsms, May 2011
• Managing A Great Social Media News Team – Poynter.org
• Twitter Guide Book – How To, Tips and Instructions by Mashable
• The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines – Copyblogger
• Live-tweeting Best Practices | Twitter Developers
• 10 ways journalists can use Twitter before, during and after reporting a story | Poynter
• Ignore the naysayers: Twitter is what you make it, Shane Richmond (@shanerichmond), telegraph.co.uk
• 6 Tips to Run a Successful Group Twitter Chat –  Social Media Today
• How has social media changed the way newsrooms work?, Kevin Bakhurst, BBC News
• Newsroom integration: the past taking over the future?, Kevin Anderson, journalism.co.uk
• Trusting Tweets, a guide for journalists - mediahelpingmedia.org
• Twitter advanced research techniques 1: searching twitter, Colin Meek (@colinmeek) and Judith Townend (@JTownend)
• Twitter Journalism: search and verification
• Tweeting 101: A Twitter Cheat Sheet – webworkerdaily.com
• Tips on tweeting live by Mary Hamilton @newsmary
• Twitter for journalists: beyond gathering and distributing content
• How journalists can master Twitter (blogger’s cut), a great guide by Paul Bradshaw, from April 2008
• Technology is not a strategy, it’s a tool – part 2, Paul Bradshaw
• Making the most of Twitter, guardian.co.uk tips
• 2009 As Seen Through Twitter Hashtags, Mashable.com
• The rise of Twitter as a serious platform for discourse, ReadWriteWeb
• Twitter Postings: Iterative Design, Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox
• How to: know when to use photos from social media, journalism.co.uk
• 10 Tips « Crowdsourcing: A Fieldguide from WNYC
• It’s time for journalists to promote a better ‘Twitter style’ – by Online Journalism Review’s Robert Niles
• @Sreenet’s Twitter Guide for Newbies & Skeptics
• @Sree’s Social Media Guide – a work in progress - a good, wide and ongoing collection of social media tips and best practices, May 2011
• Who Should Journalists Follow On Twitter? – 10000words

This post was originally published on 16th February 2010. I’ve been constantly tinkering and updating ever since as the web and social media never sleeps and is in a state of constant change.

Image used can be found here: Communication to the Stars by Striking Photography by Bo on flickr.com