Wired, we love it when you make up words. But stop!

My copy of Wired arrived in the mail today.

Page 040 Jargon Watch:

“Cybercase v. To scope out a joint using geotagged data written into digital photos posted online. By browsing images of luxury goods on sites like Flickr or craigslist, thieves can often glean the exact location of the loot and then plot a targeted break-in.”

OK – I know Wired takes credit for popularizing terms like crowdsourcing and Great Firewall of China (page 30, same issue) but c’mon.

First of all, this meme dates all the way back to May of this year when two researchers at the International Computer Science Institute and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. created it. The pair, Gerald Friedland and Robin Sommer, wrote a paper titled: Cybercasing the Joint: On the Privacy Implications of Geo‐Tagging and presented it at the  Fifth USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Security (HotSec ’10) at the 19th USENIX Security Symposium in Washington, D.C.

See how boring all of that sounds in context?

The topic got a bit of a run after the paper was published. ReadWriteWeb and The Atlantic, probably among others. And yet, a Google search for cybercasing turns up fewer than five relevant references in the top 100 results. And those are all to the paper or to the RWW or Atlantic coverage. This is a word in search of a use case to apply itself to.

I really only noticed the term in the magazine today because a few weeks ago we had a potential “cybercase” which took place in a next door town. Police reported that some thieves had broken into homes based on people’s Facebook updates. It took about 2.5 seconds for that to go viral. Unfortunately for the sake of a good story, as Jeff Jarvis discovered, the thieves and the victims were known to each other – that’s why they could read their Facebook updates in the first place.

Of interest to me, the actual local paper (my former employer) reported, but never played up the Facebook angle possibly by luck, or just plain good judgment.

But, getting back to Wired: I love it when they “discover” words and it is always worth at least a chuckle, if not some further thought. But please, this is obviously a fake trend story so next time let’s try to couch the definition a bit more:

“Cybercase v. The potential threat, though never actually spotted in the wild, that really intelligent thieves (who apparently prefer crime to a career in IT) might spend their time scoping out a joint using geotagged data written into digital photos posted online, instead of just driving around to the nice parts of town and looking for homes with a week’s worth of mail on the front step. By browsing images of luxury goods on sites like Flickr or craigslist, thieves can often glean the exact location of the loot and then plot a targeted break-in, that is assuming the images were taken in your current home, and the item you put on craigslist did not sell that very afternoon. By the way, if the images were in fact taken at home, you might want to warn your neighbors since the GPS tags are probably going to drop the crooks in their swimming pool.”

What are your metrics?

In December I will be leading a Poynter News University webinar titled “Track Your Traffic: Web Metrics for Journalists.” The name sort of aligns itself with the theory that journalists and math don’t mix well which is unfair but still often true. So while basic Web metrics are not calculus if you don’t work with them every day then jargon like UV, PV, Avg Time Spent, Search Refers, and Bounce Rate can still be a challenge.

The session will review the basic terms and methodology of Web analytics but will also let people put their own Web reports into some context. To help with that we want to gather (anonymously) examples of a few key metrics from your web site. We don’t want names or any other identifying information and the only descriptions that will be used in the training will be generic such as “A 30,000 circ daily in the Northeast.”

If you complete the survey and provide your e-mail address, we’ll send you a promo code worth $10 off the Webinar. The code will be sent one month before the Webinar, so make sure you fill out the survey before then.

Thanks for the help and please leave a comment below if you have any questions or have additional data to share that might be useful in the training.

We are hiring.

If you like New England and you like digital media you have come to the right place. The Telegraph is hiring a Managing Editor / Online upon my departure on August 4. I will let the job posting below generally speak for itself but I have been here for 5 years and have loved every day of it.

The Telegraph has been named one of the best papers in New England for at least the past 5 or 6 years and we have done some great work in reader engagement, multimedia, enterprise reporting and community development during that time.

The staff and management of the paper buys into a Web-first approach and they are looking for a Managing Editor who is a good journalist and a digital innovator to take them to the next level.

Contact info is at the bottom of the listing but feel free to email me directly if you have questions about the position.

Job Posting
Managing Editor Online

Telegraph Publishing Company and its affiliate, the Cabinet Press, seek an online editor with a strong background in journalism, a thorough understanding of Internet technology, and proven leadership ability to help continue the transformation of our news organization in the digital age.

In addition to The Telegraph, of Nashua, N.H., (circ. 25,000, daily), the company also produces four weekly newspapers along with multiple niche publications and Web sites. The online editor is responsible for editorial content and presentation of NashuaTelegraph.com, Cabinet,com, and the company’s niche Web sites such as FeastNH.com, EncoreBuzz.com and TelegraphNeighbors.com.

The successful candidate will have at least five years of newsroom experience as a reporter or editor, and must be familiar and comfortable with the conventions of community journalism and the operation of a small daily newspaper. The online editor coordinates content, projects and communication between newsroom and digital media teams.

He/she must also:

  • Understand online content, revenue models and strategies; lead our community and audience development efforts and play a lead role in the implementation of our social media strategies.
  • Be familiar with all facets of publishing process from story pitch to publication in multiple media on multiple platforms including print, web and mobile.
  • Develop work flows and training plans to facilitate publication of news, videos and photos to multiple digital platforms.
  • Be immersed in the trends inside and outside the news industry that impact digital publication and audience development.
  • Be comfortable working with print and digital vendors, including writing product specifications, project management and contract review and negotiations.
  • Assist in building a newsroom technology strategy that supports mobile journalism capabilities for reporting and photo staffers.
  • Be familiar with the technology of digital publishing including Web servers, HTML, CSS and Javascript.
  • Assist in daily news coverage discussions and decisions and make independent judgments that serve both print and online coverage needs.
  • Monitor metrics for all Telegraph sites and develop relevant business and content reports and strategies.
  • Serve as a member of the Telegraph Editorial Board and contribute one editorial per month.

This is a salaried, management position; compensation commensurate with experience.

Interested applicants should apply via email to Executive Editor Dave Solomon, dsolomon@nashuatelegraph.com, with “online editor” in the subject line.

No phone calls please.

Tools for mobile journalists

As a journalist, what are your favorite mobile tools?

Not just services like Qik or Twitter, or devices like the iPhone, but anything (I mean anything) you use for researching, reporting, publishing or interacting with the community when you are on-the-go.

Think of anything from power converters to WiFi locator maps. Everything from the MiFi to the EyeFi. What is in your camera bag or backpack or car trunk (or on your phone or laptop) that helps you do your job?

I am building a June webinar for Poynter’s News University (name and date TBD) and am looking for some great examples of people doing cool things with mobile tools. You can see an list of collected links for the project at delicious.com/dkiesow/newsu.

If you know what an OWLE is or have filed a 10 inch story from your Blackberry please let me know. I hope to use a selection of real-world examples for the webinar as well as expand on a few for the Mobile Media blog.

Please leave a comment below, email damon(at)kiesow.net, or ping me @dkiesow. Thanks!

The demand curve

In general I have given up arguing free v.s. paid content strategies. The terminology being used: ‘free’ v.s. ‘paid’ is in itself some assurance that in a recession many publishers are going to start charging for their online editions. Never mind that the debate is really ad supported v.s. subscription supported v.s. a hybrid of the two. And, never mind that if you sketch out a ‘paid’ strategy thinking ‘free’ is the other alternative you are probably going to get it wrong.

So in the short term some will get it wrong, possibly horribly wrong. But those paying attention to the fact that digital has changed our culture will hopefully get it right. And ‘right’ can include some level of subscription fees, the question being what cost, what content and what platforms.

But, the number one way to get it wrong is to believe that because content is expensive to produce, readers must and will subsidize its creation through subscription fees. Assuming you are entitled to be paid for something is not really a sound economic argument, especially in the face of an unlimited supply of information driving down the perceived value of your content.

I have not seen anyone map this on a simple supply/demand curve:

Disclaimer: the chart is for entertainment purposes. I am not an economist, not even on TV and the curves here are purely diagrammatic. If this was showing a real information demand curve the ‘supply’ line would be so far to the right as to be off the page bringing the quantity (Q1) with it and dropping the price equilibrium (P1) to zero.

Economics 101 is when supply increases prices decrease. In this case we could argue demand has also increased but not enough to match a limitless supply of information.

So what we have is an oversupply of information. Not news, not journalism necessarily, but information. And guess what, consumers are exhibiting a behavior that indicates 5.5 hours per day of ‘information’ on Facebook is at least a minimally acceptable substitute for paying for a daily newspaper or watching the evening news. If the news is important it will find them. Assuming there are any newspapers left to cover it.