Journalists and Moblogs Part IV

Doug Bedell of the Dallas Morning News reports in "Moblogs' reflecting a picture of growth" at the Chicago Tribune - requires registration - "there are signs that moblogging will play an important role in online journalism...the vision of author Howard Rheingold is unfolding. In his 2002 book `Smart Mobs´ Rheingold predicted that camera phones would give rise to ´peer-to-peer` journalism. ´Imagine the power of the Rodney King video multiplied by the power of Napster,` Rheingold wrote. ´Putting video cameras and high-speed Net connections in telephones moves blogging into the streets.` Traditional media coverage of the recent Madrid train explosions was supplemented with thousands of camera-phone images sent to the Web from all angles. Many were gruesome and unsuitable for mass distribution. But some scholars say the public actually benefits from such stark realism; the gore deters further violence, they contend."

According to Doug Bedell at TextAmerica.com the most compelling of the daily incoming 10,000-plus camera phone images are culled by editors and featured in daily rotations. And "when a major event takes place--like the California wildfires--TextAmerica.com sets up a public e-mail address for eyewitness moblogging...´people started taking and posting pictures of the fire as it crept into their neighborhoods and back gardens all over San Diego,` said Hoar, the Founder of TextAmerica.com,´we had pictures of fire coming over the freeway. ... insane pictures...and these guys aren't professional photographers by any means,` Hoar said.

Mike Popavic, the founder of Hiptop Nation, the first moblogging site, adds in the report of Bedell that "I think we're going to see a loose network of people who are really out there covering something..whether they're trained to be a journalist or not, if they're at the right place at the right time and they're used to moblogging, they'll be there."

As we have reported earlier (Inside Microsoft's New Digital Photo Project), Bedell now reports that "at Microsoft, the World-Wide Media Exchange is creating a giant database of digital photographs tagged by their shooting locations. The WWMX Web site is distributing software that lets photographers inject global positioning system data into their text descriptions. Photos are uploaded to the Web, sorted by location, then mapped. Anyone can click on a point of interest and immediately access digital photos taken by others at that precise location."