This week we bring you new concepts for tools, business models and information services aimed at improving real-time social journalism across digital platforms.
The ideas surfaced during a two-day hackathon organized and hosted in San Francisco by The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, KQED and the Public Media Platform. About 80 journalists, programmers and other innovative thinkers formed teams and developed prototypes over the course of 37 hours. Out of the 14 projects presented in the end, four received awards from the panel of judges.
In this update we hear from members of each of the winning teams about what they came up with and how their ideas could make a difference.
Reporting by Reuben Stern and Travis McMillen.
Incentivizr
The hackathon grand prize was awarded to this system that would let paid digital media subscribers allocate a portion of their monthly subscription payments directly to the producers of their favorite stories.
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HereSay
The idea uses the location-based Twitter keyword trends identified by Wayin‘s social media management tools to serve up geographically relevant stories contained in the Public Media Platform. (The concept won the prize for best integration of the Public Media Platform.)
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Civic Sentiment
Designed to engage young people in the upcoming 2016 presidential election, this tool would visualize in real time how Twitter users feel about live political speeches and debates. (The concept won the prize for best integration of tools from social media-related tech company Wayin.)
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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words on Top of Twitter’s 140 Characters
This tool would feed images found on Twitter into a space alongside news articles so readers could tweet about the article with relevant images “tailored to each reader’s interpretation.” (The concept won the prize for best integration of tools from social media-related tech company Chute.)
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Other projects
The range of ideas included tools to let users adjust the tone of story headlines, to reduce the chaos of online comments, to alert journalists to breaking news events, to organize citizen journalism video, to visualize audio content, and others. Although teams competed for prizes, the overall vibe during the final presentations was friendly and supportive.
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More information
- Project submission descriptions from all 14 teams
- Individual videos of the final team pitch presentations
- Compilation of Tweets and Instagram posts from the event.
- Text overview summarizing the event
- Compilation of all RJI coverage of the event
Reuben Stern is the deputy director of the Futures Lab at the Reynolds Journalism Institute and host and co-producer of the weekly Futures Lab video update.
The Reynolds Journalism Institute’s Futures Lab video update features a roundup of fresh ideas, techniques and developments to help spark innovation and change in newsrooms across all media platforms. Visit the RJI website for the full archive of Futures Lab videos, or download the iPad app to watch the show wherever you go. You can also sign up to receive email notification of each new episode.