On the back of the last post

An interesting article not about the NewsJack service but about a process known as NewsJacking.

Wanted......

Need some people who are willing to hammer the NewsJack service, test it out, try the process out from beginning to end, we can only test so much here and right now it works for us, does it work for you? Any feedback/help would be much appreciated.

Cheers
Jack

The ideal Citizen journalist set-up

On the back of the QIK post below i just thought id mention what i think is the ideal set-up for a Citizen journalist.

Of course these days of cross-posting, RSS feeds and social networking site means alot of different services, application and websites all linking into each other and we dont want NewsJack to be left out. Taking that into account, we cant provide everything ourselves (or at least not yet), so in the meantime this is my ideal set up for citizen journalists.


Firts thing you need, (of course im bound to say this) a NewsJack account. So go set up an account and get your channel going.

You'll need a Blogger account for the written word and RSS feeds. There are other blogger sites out there, but this is the one I use.

Get QIK so you can stream live if you need to.


Sign up and install the Locatik which is a really handy location detector, and you can also post up the locations with a link to the video which gets displayed on a Google map for others to browse. Not just useful for NewsJack either, other members post interesting things such as recommendations for eating, tourist attractions, etc.




Hopefully you will also be able to embed your video into NewsJack aswell in the near future, meaning you only have to upload video to your favoured service and then post the code to NewsJack. But thats a little way off yet.


In the meantime the services mentioned above should help you out:)


Jack

QIK | Streaming video right from your phone

Yes we love this little app, and anyone thinking of using the NewsJack service should also install this app. Of course its a seperate thing from NewsJack, but we feel it would compliment it so much we have to plug it here:). Ok so the video i have isnt very interesting, (ill try and get something a little more interesting, tricky in a backwood town:)) but the principle that you can stream live from your phone is fantastic:).

Discussion boards

I've set up a discussion board at Ning. They provide some nice features, with a discussion board, you can post videos, pics, customize the layout. It's free to use so go get an account and start letting us know what you want from the NewsJack service, Highlight your latest sequences and clips, talk to other Newsjack and Ning members.


Theres a nice short animated film thats been put to a recording secretly taken of John Lennon talking openly and answering some questions. It was on the BBC here in the UK. maybe youll find something there. Actually the details of the film the title is "I Met The Walrus" by Canadian artist Josh Raskin, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short 2008. Go check it.

We like our culture, and we like our animation here at NewsJack:) Its not all war in the news you know.



Peace.


Jack

Fun Little Movies

Yay, we have our first featured channel Fun Little Movies. A great bunch of people who produce, co-produce and license short comedy videos for distribution on mobile phones, the Internet, and portable devices worldwide. Check 'em out:)


Jack

Newsjack Wiki

How to Use Newsjack

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Here you will find information on how to use the Newsjack service to upload and manage video clips and sequences.

Steps

1. Sign Up. You will need to enter the following information: user name, email address, password, channel and profile information.
   
2. Log in using your unique username and password
   
3. Upload videos.
   
   1. Browse video files on your PC or mobile phone. (maximum size is 20mb)
      
   2. Choose a video (wmv, mov, flv, 3gp, avi, mpg and mp4)
      
   3. Click Open.
      
   4. Select Private or Public use (do you want the clips to be seen by others or not)
      
   5. Commercial – (If you check the commercial tick box, it means the clip you upload will be available to companies and individuals who may want to use your video for commercial purposes (for example, News reports). If you set your clip to be commercial, then it will automatically be made public and viewable to other users)
      
   6. Add a title (relevant) – makes the video more interesting
      
   7. Choose a location – Country and city.
      
   8. Add a description
      
   9. Select a channel – this official channel shows the clips (not the sequences), otherwise the clips just appear in a library on your channel
      
   10. Tags – (Tags are descriptive keywords used to categorise your clip based on its content, for example if you upload a racing vid, you could tag it with 'Sport Racing Cars'. You can add as many tags as you like, but remember to include a space in between each tag).
       
   11. Allow comments? – This gives other NewsJackers the opportunity to give feedback on users clips
       
   12. Clips will appear in your lightbox once they’ve uploaded correctly
       
   
   
4. Lightbox. All uploaded clips appear in the user's lightbox. Clips can be viewed and deleted where applicable. Clip options can be changed from here.
   
   • Clips can be borrowed from other channels for use within your own sequences. (Only ones made public), this gives the user the opportunity to remix a news story from their own perspective.
     
   • If users can find a clip on another channel, they play the clip and press ‘Add to Lightbox’, the clip then appears in their own library for use.
     
   • If users wish to embed the link to the clip into their own web pages they can copy and paste the code supplied and add to their own page, eg: blog or webpage
     
   • Each clip comes with size, and duration details, also date specific to when the clip was first uploaded
     
   
   
5. Editting Deck
   
   1. Once all the clips required for a sequence are uploaded to the lightbox, the clips appear on the editing deck.
      
   2. The user places each clip required, from the library in the order of the sequence by dragging and dropping the clip onto the tv
      
   3. Use the yellow slides to start and finish a clip in the sequence, EG: If a clip starts and ends with either a coloured box or something unsuitable then the user has an opportunity to edit the clip so that the best image starts and ends the sequence and will be available for others to identify the sequence more easily
      
   4. Stings can be used in between clips for continuity – library assets courtesy of NewsJack.tv can be found under stings on the Editing Deck
      
   
   
6. Manage sequences. The completed sequence now appears on the Edit Channel
   
   1. Users can broadcast to their channel by dragging the sequence into the broadcast channel
      
   2. Replace an existing broadcasted sequence with another by dragging and droppig the news sequence over one in the panel
      
   3. Admin may also choose to broadcast a users sequence on the official channels if they are deemed suitable
      
   4. Users can change the channel colours, the channel picture an edit the channel tagline from within Edit Channel
      
   
   

Tips

• Capture your video on your phone and upload it via your computer, you won't get the data charges then.
  
• WAP service to upload your video on the fly and edit it later when back in front of a computer. This will allow you to free your phone memory up if you want to take more video.
  
• At Newsjack we refer to individual clips as just that, 'Clips'. If you join a number of clips together then we refer to that as a 'Sequence'.
  
• All clips go through an approval stage via a moderator. All videos will be viewed within a 24hour period. Please flag up any videos or comments that you feel are unsuitable, the moderator will deal with them within 24 hours.
  

Warnings

• If your video does not appear in your channel then it is either still waiting for approval from administration, has been rejected from processing, or has already been deleted due to clip being inappropriate. Please contact Newsjack team if unsure or you seek to enquire about your video.
  

Things You'll Need

• A video camera or video enabled mobile phone.
  
• Internet access
  
• Network coverage/contract from one of the many network operators.
  

Sources and Citations

• http://www.newsjack.tv
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Use Newsjack. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.