Norgdom

We have gone back to the drawing board with our classified site. But we need your help.
Good news is it’s fun and doesn’t take much time.
So if you can help out, head on over here . The exercise will help us better understand how you sort information.
Thanks all

R/WW has a post up called “Online Citizen Journalism Now Undeniably Mainstream” which says that:

It’s interesting to see how the techniques and technologies of amateur, citizen journalists are adopted, co-opted, and integrated by the mainstream media.

The post is a reponse to Nokia announcing a partnership with Reuters to provide a “mobile journalism kit” for their reporters. They have taken a standard N95 and added a bluetooth keyboard, basic tripod to help in video interviews and a Sony microphone for directional audio recording and reducing background noise in interviews - this required a special adaptor plug that was made by Nokia for the project.

As some of you may be aware we have had a similar arrangement with Nokia for some time, when it gave us some Nokia N93s to give to a few of our Cit Js to enable mobile reporting. The phones have been fantastic for this, but in Australia the limitations are often technical and nothing to do with a phone’s ability to record quality video, because of our slow and costly mobile data transfer. At the end of the day, I still think raw and unpolished images have a place - they seem more real and exciting to me.

Myles and I have talked a lot about making the Norg easier to use from mobile so that Cit Js can send stories in to us in the easiest way possible.
But the technology is just one part of the equation. The more important part is ‘us’ .

The thought of giving all of us the immediate ability to report and share on the world around us is really fascinating. In the year since I launched PerthNorg, a lot has happened to open people’s eyes to these possibilities. The latest and probably most widely reported example has been the fires in California. As R/WW points out:

In order to report on the fires ravaging that part of the United States, many news outlets have solicited, and subsequently used, submissions from people capturing news with cell phone cameras and on blogs (and Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc.).

Twitter, has also brought another immediate and responsive element to news. I remember a few months ago when I noticed reports of an earthquake in San Francisco coming through as it happened from my Twitter friends. You can’t get any more real than that.

The challenge for all of us the is to take part and join the conversation and not to underestimate what we have to contribute.

The Nokia and Reuters deal sounds great and I’m glad they recognise the possibilities that mobiles have brought to news, but at the end of the day I think we can do it better. There’s no guarantee that when news happens that those reporters will be there. A community of Cit Js will always be stronger. We don’t have a new role in the media - we are the media. Let’s step up to that

Election07 Norg s a place for you to have a say on the upcoming Australian elections. We wanted to offer something a bit different to other elections sites out there. So this is a place or you to have your say.

No doubt, we’ll be hearing where our politicians stand on everything in the upcoming weeks, but what do we think? Election 07 is a place for you to be the eyes and ears of the Australian election and have some hearty debate along the way.

All Cit Js do not need to register as there is cross login across the norgs.

But help us spread the word and happy norging.

PS. I was almost tempted to declare PerthNorg an election free zone, as there are some out there who have requested a news site without election news. But will leave that up to you.

Read you round the Norg.