Because of the excellent suggestions from Times' Lens' contributors and since it's no secret I work at the Times as the Multimedia Editor, I went ahead and included NYTimes' Lens' Must See RSS feed to the Interactive Narratives' NetVibes Universe. You can go to the main page now.]]> http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?blog_id=17 http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?site_id=16

I found Trent Nelson’s "The Click" blog via Zach Wise. The Click is quick. And their RSS feed is now a part Photojournalism area of the Interactive Narratives NetVibes Universe. You can also follow their Twitter feed.]]> http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?blog_id=16 http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?site_id=15

Want to get faster updates of multimedia stories and interactive narratives? Follow Interactive Narratives, or INarratives, on twitter at http://twitter.com/inarratives.]]> http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?blog_id=15 http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?site_id=13

I just added a few more feeds to our NetVibes Universe. Any other must haves on the list? New ones include: - Multimedia Shooter (on Video Journalism) - Boston.com's The Big Picture (on Photo Journalism) - MSNBC's Top Videos (on Publications) ]]> http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?blog_id=13 http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?site_id=12

For almost a decade, the multimedia bootcamp workshops at the University of North Carolina provided one of the main training sites for hundreds of professional journalists seeking to understand new storytelling tools and techniques and to gain hands-on training. These workshops provided an important introduction for journalists being asked to tell multimedia stories by introducing them to hardware and software, and multimedia planning, production and programming techniques. Now, Prof. Rich Beckman, the founder and director of the Multimedia Bootcamp Workshops is pleased to announce that the Beyond Bootcamp Workshops for journalists and journalism educators will premier in January at the School of Communication at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, where he now serves as the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism. The School and the Knight Center for International Media will host the workshops. Rather than a single workshop that introduces participants to different areas of multimedia storytelling, the Beyond Bootcamp Workshops will each last three days and cover a specific skill set. The workshops will retain many of the most popular features of the Multimedia Bootcamp Workshops, including the opening night keynote presentation, daily lunches with leading multimedia producers, a faculty of the leading multimedia educators and practitioners, training on state-of-the-art hardware and software, highly trained lab assistants and numerous handouts and take-home materials. The first six workshops will be offered beginning January 3-6 and 7-10, 2009. The schedule is as follows: January 3-6 January 7-10 Creating Audio Narratives Creating Video Narratives Faculty: Jim Seida, MSNBC and Faculty: Travis Fox, WashingtonPost.com Nancy Donaldson, WashingtonPost.com Jim Virga, UM SoC Multimedia Production Creating Effective Online Infographics Meredith Birkett, MSNBC and Alberto Cairo, UNC JOMC and Kim Grinfeder, UM SoC Xaquin GV, New York Times Teaching Multimedia: A Workshop Multimedia Programming for Journalists For College Educators Donny Lofland, UNC JOMC and Prof. Rich Beckman, UM SoC and Tom Jackson, New York Times Prof. Laura Ruel, UNC JOMC Each set of workshops will open at 7:30 p.m. with a keynote address and conclude at 5 p.m. on the final day. Opening Night Keynote Addresses: Session One: January 3, 2009 @ 7:30 p.m. Brian Storm, CEO, Media Storm Session Two: January 7, 2009 @ 7:30 p.m. Andrew DeVigal, Director of Multimedia, NYT Lunch Presentations: Sunday, January 4: Pam Chen, Senior Communications Coordinator, Open Society Institute Monday, January 5: Tom Kennedy, Director of Multimedia, washingtonpost.com Tuesday, January 6: Keith Jenkins, Supervising Senior Producer, NPR Thursday, January 8: Dr. Paige West, Director of Interactive Projects, MSNBC.com Friday, January 9: TBA Saturday, January 10: TBA Tuition for one three-day workshop is $750; tuition for two consecutive three-day workshops is $1,400. Tuition includes all materials, a dedicated computer terminal for each participant, access to state-of-the art hardware and software and many meals (three lunches and two dinners) during the workshop. Tuition does not include transportation or lodging. Each workshop will be limited to the first 15 participants who register and submit payment. Registration is online and available at: http://www.beyondbootcamp.org/ For questions about any of the workshops, contact Prof. Rich Beckman at rbeckman@miami.edu or 305-284-2726. ]]> http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?blog_id=12 http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?site_id=11

When we relaunched Interactive Narratives a few weeks ago, a few packages stood out as compelling visual narratives. A couple of them came from Bombay Flying Club, a multimedia production team from Denmark which I was not aware of. So, naturally, we needed to find out more about them. So Laura Lo Forti, of The Raw File and On The Road Media, got them on Skype a couple of weeks ago to find out what makes them tick and keeps them motivated. And, let me tell you, it's exciting time. Not just for the work they've already established but also for the things to come from this duo of photojournalists, Poul Madsen and Henrik Kastenskov. UPDATE: Incidentally, as of Sept 2, 2008, Poul Madsen lost his full-time job at the Danish paper called, Nyhedsavisen. A 2-year battle between the well established papers and free newspapers in Denmark is over. Nyhedsavisen lost this expensive battle - American investors backed out with no warning and, as a result, 40-50 journalists and photographers lost their jobs.]]> http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?blog_id=11 http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?site_id=10 IN NEWS Gone are the horribly-spammable PunBB I was using for posting news and other board items. New is a whole system developed by Ervic Aquino which is a lot like a blog but easier for me. All super users can enter an IN News item. RSS for the News/Blog items is here CONSISTENT TAGS I've also included an area on the right column for consistent tags. These are tags in the news. Right now we have 'olympics2008' for example. Maybe we should have one for Gustav as another. And also, a number of you have been asking for quicker ways to access just videos, or just soundslides... and even some just interactivegraphics. So, if you guys want to include those items in the tags for IN Entries, it's a quick way to categories the database. DELICIOUS TAGS For delicious users, all you need to do is tag your delicious bookmarks with a "4interactivenarratives" and it'll show up on this list. For now, let's keep it to resources or articles of interest to our community. Excellent projects should go into the IN Entries Database. Otherwise, this is a good spot for others. BOTTLE OF WINE Finally, we're starting up another podcast focusing on multimedia talk and it's called "Multimedia and a Bottle of Wine." Take a listen. I'll include it in iTunes soon. Otherwise, if you're visiting NYC from out of town and want to join us for a bottle of wine and a bit of multimedia discussion, drop me a line. Alright folks... many thanks for the support and on-going contribution.]]> http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?blog_id=10 http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?site_id=9

The first episode of "Multimedia and a Bottle of Wine." This is just the beginning. We're gonna try to do this on a regular basis, but it's really based on our own travel plans and other projects. But we're also hoping that as folks come and visit New York City, you'll join us for a bottle of wine and a conversation on multimedia. In this episode, we point out the following sites:

• Closer to Home
• Hungry: Living with Prader-Willi Syndrome
• Bucharest Below Ground
• Breakdown: Canada’s Mental Health Crisis
• Ambassador Mahal: Face of a Dying Species

]]> http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?blog_id=9 http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?site_id=4

@everyone - just wanted to drop a big thanks to folks for visiting IN2.0 and offering your congrats. It's been a long time coming and after months of work from a great team... we finally launched. You guys probably saw the write up on Poynter as well as ONA President's, Jon Dube, letter. It's been great to see the number of new registered users as well as the new entries to the site. It expanding our world of great storytellers. With that said, I'm looking forward to seeing more comments so we can learn from each other. Also, a couple of things that have come up and will probably land on some FAQ page eventually. But for the mean time...

• Find the feed here: RSS feed.
• Tags: when you guys put in your tags, let's do oneword tags. in other words, no spaces between your intended tag. (ie: washingtondc for the capitol, otherwise, 'washington dc' would also be the state + dc)
• Tags (part 2): commas aren't necessary, space will separate
• 'Submit to IN' bookmarklet - we have a bookmarklet to make it easy for you to submit to IN2.0. Here's a little how-to video.

Think that Interactive Narratives is limited to just interactivenarratives.org? Think again. Point your browser to the Interactive Narratives NetVibes Universe. You can get to direct links to what you get on Narratives now. But, in addition, we have a chock-full-of-tabs of goodness. Check 'em out @ NETVIBES * Main * Web-focused Blogs * Video Journalism * Photo Journalism * Interactive Graphics * Academia * Publications (definitely need more here) * This & That (for others that just doesn't seem to fit) FACEBOOK Join the Facebook Fan Page for Interactive Narratives DELICIOUS In one of the modules for the Main NetVibes Universe tab, there's a set of delicious links. If you want a link to show up there, simply tag your bookmark as "4interactivenarratives". If you have to ask how to do this, probably best that you don't. ;) Enjoy... - Andrew DeVigal]]> http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?blog_id=5 http://www.interactivenarratives.org/blog/?site_id=3

I launched Interactive Narratives back in July 2003. It began as personal bookmarking system where I kept track of multimedia packages as I lectured and conducted workshops at The Poynter Institute and around the country. I quickly discovered that such a database had widespread usefulness and appeal. Common feedback from folks throughout the industry was that they felt isolated during their multimedia reporting and editing process. It had a great four-year run. Hundreds of entries in the searchable database. Reviews, resources, podcasts and conversations on the weblog. It was a resource perfectly sandwiched between Weiss' Multimedia Journalism and Koci's Multimedia Shooter. And I hope it contributed a bit to the idea of exposing our storytelling to a wider audience. Times have changed, so to speak. A full-time gig kept me from giving the TLC that a site like IN required. In addition, today's web 2.0 universe empowers the users to help create social networks and connect with each other. There are certainly more journalists and storytellers out there with the passion to tell their narratives in multimedia. But there's also a lot of data smog that clog up the ability to see what's great and how we can learn from each other. Time is too short to sift through the YouTubes of the world. Welcome to Interactive Narratives 2.0, a site designed to capture the best of online visual storytelling around the country and the world. Unlike the original IN, submission to the database is open to the membership of Interactive Narratives. And members can also rate and make comments on individual entries. A sort functionality allow users to list those interactives focused on their preference or craft. Our goal is to highlight rich-media content, engaging storytelling, and eye-popping design in an environment that fosters interaction, discussion, and learning. Interactive Narratives has the best database for this type of material out there. With IN 2.0, we've retained the ability to search past multimedia stories from the original database. Now, it will only get better with the community contributing to this knowledge base. IN2.0 will truly be a gathering place for multimedia storytellers. It's not just a place for professionals but also freelancers, students and citizen journalist. The site will go beyond the critiques. The site will go beyond collecting the blog postings into one space. Interactive Narratives will gather those storytellers that care about the high-standards of their narratives. In addition, another distinctive approach to Interactive Narratives is the brevity of the general message. There are times when brevity is key and when the message is told in short form. Multimedia storytellers and journalists are busy. Many need to re-learn a craft, explore new opportunities to tell a story and be inspired from discussion. But it's also very important to focus on the story gathering process. Hence, most folks I know appreciate the brevity of a message. Messages in the critique portion of the site will be kept to 300 words or less. The site is sponsored by the Online News Association, which works to foster innovation among online journalists and help those journalists, freelancers, academics, and students learn from the best practitioners in the field and from each other. Interactive Narratives is appreciative of their support and partnership. Finally, to give credit to where credit is absolutely due. The launch of IN2.0 would not have been possible without the team of folks behind the scenes. Hat tip to you gents... thank you.

• Ervic Aquino of Stormline Media - back-end development -
• Angelo DeVigal of DeVigal Design - branding and site design -
• Jason Speck - markup and front-end interaction development -

• Expectations - To continue the high-quality of entries and engagement on this site, I've outlined a few rules and regulations on our terms of use page.
• Bugs - If you discover (or uncover) any strange or unexpected functionality to the site, please drop a response here.
• Wishlist - Got ideas? So did we. Share them here.
• Beyond the Network - More to keep you inspired and connected: NetVibes Universe, Facebook Fan Page, and more to come...