lucindigo.com

“It appears the fundamental issue for the future of journalism is not audiences splintering away to citizen media, corporate PR and other non-news venues. In many ways the audience for news—and for what traditional newsrooms produce—appears to be growing. Nor are journalists failing to adapt. There are more signs in 2008 than ever that news people embrace the new technology and want to innovate.

“The problem, it is increasingly clear, is a broken economic model—the decoupling of advertising and news. Advertisers are not migrating to news websites with audiences, and online, news sites are already falling financially behind other kinds of web destinations.”

Will cover more of the findings and insights later, in the meanwhile:

Read about Major Trends HereÂ

Read Full Report Here

A few weeks ago I wrote a post linking to Scott Karp’s Publishing 2.0 Blog where he talked about Reinventing journalism - links as news, links as reporting

I just came across this article “Opening Bell: The economy’s toxic blend” in the Columbia Journalism review today, which is a stunning example of this in action. While not a warm, fuzzy topic, it is an example of bringing depth and breadth to a story and creating a controlled experience for the reader, with exit points to further educate yourself right along the way. This article can take 5 mins or 50 mins to read, you can learn 5 things or 50, its up to you - this is journalism reinvented.

• Live by the rules of a beta economy
• Leverage existing platforms
• Switch Tubes
• Don’t just entertain, engage
• Orchestrate infinite touch points
• Prototype often
• Trade focus groups for digital ethnography
• Think outside the banner
• Embrace delight by functionality
• Listen.

View Slideshow Here

The last few posts I have written have been about teaching yourself something, as it is necessary to with digital media if you are to stay up to date with the overnight, hourly, constant developments in the space. It would be impossible to develop course materials on such a topic as they would have expired by the times the course notes were printed.

Something I have got into recently is iTunesU, where Universities publish full courses in audio and print format online. Read about it here. You can download podcasts and listen at your own hours and in your own realms of interest.
MIT announced an online initiative in 2001 called Open-CourseWare, to “advance knowledge and educate students . . . to best serve the world.” OCW shares free lecture notes, exams, and other resources from more than 1800 courses spanning MIT’s entire curriculum. Have a look at MIT offerings here

I think these resources are brilliant. They hold such potential to reach the masses that can not afford the money or time for lectures, and really break down the barriers to entry for those who are willing to knuckle down and do this on their own time with only initiative to keep you on task.

The fundamental question in many minds though is what about the missing piece of paper? How does an online course sit on a CV without grades, attendance records, assignment marks or the piece of paper at the end? Well, we are going for the paperless office, so why not a shift to paperless degrees?

Employers may at this early stage of online education’s existence question the validity of these courses. In my opinion, if you have completed a course and you are confident in your learnings and the value this brings to your role and workplace then make sure you communicate this, then deliver on it.

It is a new concept, but one I think that will gain momentum, particularly for those that have completed university are in the workplace and want to continue to upskill and expand knowledge into new areas that you may not have had access to through formal education.

I found a great resource today called “More than 100 Free Places to learn online and counting” - it includes

• Online tutorial and How-to sites
• Big Idea and Debate sites
• Higher Education and Open Education initiatives
• Business and Professional skills
• Language, spelling and grammar
• Web skillsAnd a whole lot more. Have a look here