LOJOCONNECT.COM
location-based technology + journalism

By Hilary Powell

Locative technologies are becoming more important to the future of journalism. Based on extensive research and experimentation with “locative journalism,” our team of master’s students at the Medill School of Journalism has completed a downloadable report (45 pages, plus appendices, in a single 3MB PDF file). From the report, here are our recommendations for journalists, news organizations and media companies:

1) Think geographically
News organizations should geotag their content. As location-based services and applications grow, the companies that have tagged their content from the beginning will have an advantage.

2) Capitalize on mobile technology for geo-content
The mobile technology already exists for news organizations to use location-based services to target consumers on mobile devices. One example is mobile phone messaging based on a recipient’s location. JotYou provides text messages that are only delivered when a recipient enters a previously specified geographic location. As an example, people could opt-in to get the latest score of a Cubs game as they drive by Wrigley Field. The technology exists for news organizations to start sending text messages of breaking news headlines that are geographically relevant.

3) The media should be experimenting now with mobile content
Now is the right time to explore and capitalize on the mobile content world. Smartphones are expected to continue to gain popularity, which would give media companies more opportunities to provide wireless content on portable devices. As people become “urban nomads” who aren’t tied to home or the office, there is a push for mobile content and Internet experiences on portable devices that are more similar to that of the desktop computers in terms of look and usability, such as the number of clicks required to access information. Google’s new Android open mobile operating system could help make this transition more seamless. Web pages are increasingly being optimized for the mobile devices through sites such as Skweezer.

4) Streamline content delivery
The process of getting content to portable devices is often cumbersome. The news media should capitalize on new technologies to streamline content delivery and thereby increase the number of users. Improvements in wireless, cellular and GPS technologies will allow for on-demand, wireless content delivery.

5) Target a young adult audience
Young adults are likely to be most receptive to location-based media at this point. Mobile social networking sites that are driven by location, such as Brightkite and Loopt, have immersed young adults into the world of location-based services. Young adults are also the most likely to have the smartphones that are best right now for location-based storytelling. But the audience will broaden as all mobile phones become more location-aware.

6) Maximize existing resources
News organizations should utilize their mobile journalists for locative storytelling. They can easily re-purpose audio, video and images from other kinds of stories. Also, news organizations should remember that locative storytelling does not have to require GPS-triggered stories. They can utilize audio recorders, which they most likely already have, for audio-only stories. Making audio tracks of locative stories available for download on the Web is cost-effective and easy.

7) Harness the power of audio
News organizations should begin to explore locative storytelling through audio tours. Not only are audio tours less costly to produce than GPS-driven content, but the audience is more likely to already have the MP3 players or even desktop computers needed to hear the stories. Start with audio tours and then eventually work up to location-triggered stories such as Mediascapes. News organizations should remember that walking tours often work best when they are mostly audio-based. Video is still very powerful, but should be reserved for the Web for location-based storytelling.

8 ) Treat locative stories differently, depending on the type of news
Breaking news is different from in-depth features and should be treated as such. It is ideal to know breaking news as it happens, so news organizations should capitalize on wireless alerts. However, immersive storytelling such as Mediascapes should be on-demand. Users may not have the time or patience for these types of stories on a daily basis, but this option should be readily available. Also, immersive storytelling that is dependent upon a user’s physical location should be tied closely to the geographic surroundings. News organizations may want to create GPS-driven stories on-site, so they can also provide precise orientation and directional cues, which are crucial.

9) Avoid “Google Maps fatigue”
News organizations need to better organize and differentiate information on interactive maps, to help avoid having content that looks repetitive. With Google Maps, there is not a lot you can do to change the look of the interface or to add more interactive features. However, Google Maps API gives authors some of these capabilities. News organizations should also explore other types of interactive maps.

10) Explore location-based advertising
Location-based advertising is one hope for media companies to generate revenue from location-based stories. It has great allure because consumers could conceivably be in locations near advertisers’ stores or products, and buy based upon impulse or convenience. Advertisements could play immediately before or after locative stories. However, news organizations should avoid ads embedded within locative stories, which would not only be intrusive, but also heavily blur the line between editorial and advertising content.

11) Encourage user feedback and community involvement
In offering locative content, news organizations should capitalize on the trendiness of sites that allow sharing, commenting and user-generated content. Also, following the lead of community storytelling initiatives, such as The Organic City, based in Oakland, Calif., newsrooms should engage community members in story development and promotion.

12) Just do it!!!
Locative journalism is relatively new, but holds a great deal of promise. We’re accustomed to using linear interfaces, such as alphabetized directories and timelines, to organize and access information. But our experiences in the real, physical and non-digitized world are usually not linear. They’re spatial, dynamic and intuitive. Locative technology has the power to capitalize on that instinct.

By Hilary Powell

The final report from Team LoJo — six master’s students exploring “locative storytelling” at the Medill School of Journalism — is now available for download (a 45-page report, plus appendices, in a single 3MB PDF file). Over the next few days, we’ll highlight our key findings and recommendations.

First, the most significant findings:

1) Geography is key

Geography is a key tool for making content relevant to media users. It is becoming a powerful interface for information search and organization. News organizations are increasingly geotagging, or embedding geographic data in stories, so they can be easily identified by their relevant locations. Rather than searching by keyword, people can now browse a digital map for relevant information for a particular location. The Google Earth-New York Times partnership is a powerful example of this. Also, Google’s news aggregation service now allows users to quickly see all the stories for a given geographical location. Geotagging is not only used by news organizations. It is also catching on with consumers, who are tagging photos within photo sharing sites such as Flickr. Driving this trend, many new cameras allow for automatic geotagging of photos.

2) Mobile technology is ideal for geographically relevant content

Key advantages of mobile devices include portability, location awareness that can be used to customize content, and the fact that people nowadays almost always have their cell phones with them. Increasingly, cell phones and other mobile devices will include GPS and other technologies that “know” the user’s location. This will make it increasingly possible to target content to users based on their location or geographic interests. Our experience with locative stories delivered to portable devices has taught us that this kind of storytelling, at its best, can be extremely compelling.

3) American media companies have been slow to develop mobile content and adapt to cultural changes

U.S. media companies are lagging foreign competitors. For example, in April 2008, French company Orange launched Read & Go, a portable electronic newspaper kiosk with access to several different newspapers. In 2006, Belgian newspaper de Tijd became the first paper in the world to publish on epaper - flexible electronic paper that can be dynamically updated. Meanwhile, foreign news media established mobile newspaper versions several years ahead of major American media companies. Cultural and technological changes have made consumers increasingly become “urban nomads” who are not tied to their offices and homes. But American media companies have been slow to develop content for mobile devices and to capitalize on this trend.

4) Cumbersome content delivery has limited the market for mobile and location-based stories

The process of getting content into a portable device can be time-consuming and often requires multiple steps. Podcasts must be downloaded from the Web, then transferred to an MP3 player. Cellular phones offer the potential of immediate content downloads, but most users are limited to content distributed through their wireless carrier. Mediascapes must also be downloaded, and can run only on a minority of portable devices. Google Earth offers a compelling user experience but requires a separate software download. The demand for location-based content will increase as the technological barriers fade away – eventually allowing people to obtain multimedia content on demand or automatically based on their location.

5) Young adults are avid users of mobile technology, and are likely to further embrace mobile content as social networking moves to portable devices

Mobile technology’s value to young adults will only increase as social networks go mobile. Young adults also tend to be more tech savvy, early adopters and less likely to worry about privacy issues and location tracking because they have grown up in a world with Facebook and other applications that make people’s private lives very public.

6) Newsrooms have resources that could already be used for locative storytelling

Mobile journalists are proliferating in newsrooms. For example, Reuters partnered with Nokia Research Center to outfit reporters with “mobile journalist toolkits” that allow reporters to file and publish stories from handheld devices. Mobile journalists are ideal producers of locative content because they are already outfitted with the necessary technology, tools and mindset. Not only are they in the field with portable laptops, voice recorders and video cameras, they are also on the hunt for hyper-local content.

7) Audio has been under-appreciated

Now that portable devices are becoming more popular for consuming content, people need to overcome the notion that audio is only for radio. Audio is powerful, immersive and often useful because people tend to use portable devices while multitasking. Several news organizations have started to offer audio tours that can be just as powerful as location-based stories. The New York Times, for example, offers several audio narratives of Manhattan neighborhoods, including tours of the places that defined P.T. Barnum’s New York and the Underground Railroad routes in Brooklyn.

8 ) The success of locative stories depends upon their treatment

Locative stories are more likely to catch on if they’re organic experiences. Consumers will be more likely to embrace this storytelling form if it fits the flow of their daily lives and does not force them into a location and an experience. Breaking news alerts trigged by a user’s current location could be really valuable. For example, users could be alerted of a big demonstration taking place up ahead and decide whether to avoid it or to attend. That said, there is still an audience for immersive, GPS-driven stories like Mediascapes, but the content and delivery mechanisms could differ from that of breaking news locative stories.

9) Readers may be suffering from overloaded maps that look similar

Newspapers widely and frequently use interactive online maps now, leading to what we call “Google Maps fatigue.” More information is being attached to geographic coordinates and readers may be turned off by the basic look of Google Maps, which start to look the same and are ubiquitous.

10) Location-based advertising is the “holy grail” of mobile marketing

Many advertisers want to explore mobile marketing, especially location-based advertisements, but there have been some roadblocks, including privacy and tracking concerns. Also, these ads are sometimes carried by select mobile subscribers, or are only available to owners who opt in and have GPS-enabled phones. CBS and Loopt recently announced plans for localized banner ads on certain CBS mobile sites. More partnerships of this kind are expected, although privacy concerns persist. The company that figures out how to provide location-based ads without infringing on consumers’ privacy or irritating them, while also reaching the specific consumers that they want to target, will be successful.

11) Younger audiences want to be more deeply involved in creating and sharing content, a form of social capital among young adults

We live in an era of user-generated content and participation. Young adults, in particular, are used to sites that allow comments, rating or reviews, and sharing. Sites such as Yelp and YouTube have been distinguished and made popular by these qualities. Social networking sites such as Facebook have applications that allow for easier sharing of news stories and other content.

12) Locative journalism holds great promise

We are accustomed to using linear interfaces, such as alphabetized directories and timelines, to organize and access information. But our experiences in the real, physical and non-digitized world are usually not linear. They’re spatial, dynamic and intuitive. Locative technology has the power to capitalize on that instinct. Also, now is an ideal time to incorporate location-based storytelling into journalism, considering the explosion of location-based services in general society and the technological advancements that are making location-based content viable and increasingly popular.

By Amy Lee

The Associated Press on Monday showed off a program that the news agency says will allow iPhone users to submit news, photos and video to the AP’s Mobile News Network when they witness a breaking news event. The new software, which was unveiled at Apple Inc.’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, is expected to be available to iPhone users in the next few weeks, according to Jane Seagrave, the AP’s senior vice president for global product development. The AP says the new iPhone application enables faster downloads and the ability to read news even when the phone is not connected to the Internet, according to an AP news article.

The agency on May 5 launched the Mobile News Network for a variety of smart phones — including the iPhone — that allows users to access local news stories from more than 100 newspapers, as well as national and international news from the AP. The reports are organized by zip code. The agency already allows users to submit photos, news and video to its Web site, and in fact distributed footage this week from amateur videographers who witnessed Sunday’s mass stabbing at a Tokyo shopping area.

Seagrave stated that the news cooperative is “eager to get submissions” of material from iPhone users, and promises that material would be screened by AP staffers before publication. In my mind, this is critical to their initiative, and could help to make it a success.

Any news organization should be especially careful about posting material gleaned by “citizen journalists,” because they must be sure that the submitter (if you will) is in fact, a witness to the event and that they are an unbiased source of news. This will not only help to get news out more quickly with powerful visual images, but it also helps to protect the brand and reputation of the news agency itself. I’ll be curious to check out the application when it is unveiled, and hope that the agency has made the process of submitting breaking news from the iPhone as easy as possible.

By Satta Sarmah

For many locative journalists, maps are the most efficient tool to tell a location-based story. Over the past 10 weeks, Team LoJo has relied on maps, GPS devices and other tools to tell our Chicago 2016 locative story.

We followed the lead of other news organizations, such as the Bakersfield Californian and The New York Times, which mostly rely on Google Maps for locative stories.

While that mapping platform has great capabilities, a quick Web search revealed other mapping tools that multimedia journalists should know about.

MapsAlive, an application used to create interactive maps and floor plans, gives journalists, real estate professionals and tourism businesses the ability to make any ordinary map interactive. It’s been used in various ways, from creating interactive directories of stores in a mall to virtual tours of national parks and as an interactive illustration of a crime scene.

Vermont-based company AvantLogic created MapsAlive in 2007 and says it wants the technology to be “the premier tool for creating online interactive map tours.” Interactive map tours are basically multimedia presentations containing information, images and text associated with particular locations.

AvantLogic says anyone with basic computer skills can create an interactive map tour on its Web site. Users must upload their own photos and maps (such as scans of print maps or maps found online). Then, they drag markers onto certain points within the map. Hit the publish button and MapsAlive will create an interactive map tour to your liking.

The cost to create these maps is free. However, MapsAlive charges $39 a year for a premium membership, which allows members to download the interactive maps to their computers or servers.

It seems much easier than creating an interactive map in a program like Adobe Flash, which requires some programming skills in order to write ActionScript.

MapsAlive has also made itself more competitive with other mapping platforms by releasing a second version, which allows users to input video and Flash movies , display data from an information database in real time, and create a categorized directory of locations on their interactive map tours.

By Amy Lee

Fellow LoJo Team member Satta Sarmah on Saturday blogged about our recent trial of our Chicago Olympic 2016 Mediascape tour in Washington Park, and noted that while it wasn’t without a hitch (who knew balloons marking a path would prove confusing?), overall we judge the event as a success because of the largely positive feedback on both our reporting and on the use of GPS technology for storytelling. Our participants were kind enough to fill out a fairly lengthy and in-depth questionnaire we’d developed to gauge what worked, what didn’t and offer suggestions on how this technology might be applied to other subject matter to create a thorough and engaging storytelling experience.

One idea for other story ideas that could work with GPS-based devices that repeatedly surfaced from our “guinea pigs” this past Saturday was the idea that this technology could be used to create neighborhood historical tours, especially in a town like Chicago, which is known for its diverse and long-established neighborhoods. This struck me as pretty genius, so I decided to sit down and see what’s out there for Chicago residents looking for a mobile storytelling experience, even if it isn’t based on GPS technology (since there’s very little of that out there right now).

Turns out, the Chicago History Museum is a gold mine for location-based tours – and I don’t mean just audio tours of indoor museum exhibits.
I mean location-based storytelling by land, by elevated train and by boat, including self-propelled (kayak) and tours on the sightseeing boats on the Chicago River. They offer a variety of tours, some with an audio companion and some with real-life guides. They go into gritty neighborhoods and upper-crust neighborhoods. They go to pubs. They have not one but five elevated train tours in a series they call “Life Along the ‘L’.” They have a series of cemetery tours and a 25-mile bike tour – in fact, unfortunately, all three of their summer bike tours are already booked solid.

So, for those looking to delve deeper into Chicago’s history and get out and experience location-based storytelling this summer, check out their website – and if the bike tours are any indication, do it quickly, before the tour you’re looking for is sold out!

By Satta Sarmah

With a bit of anxiety and great anticipation, the LoJo team ventured to Washington Park this morning for a trial run of our Chicago 2016 locative tour.

We were armed with our HP IPAQ GPS-enabled devices, headphones, response surveys–and loads of coffee and bagels— for the people who were kind enough to volunteer as our multimedia guinea pigs.

About 10 people showed up for our experiment, which was the perfect number for our five-person team.

Though we had more GPS devices than people, even the best laid plans sometimes go awry.

A few of our devices went haywire. Some couldn’t locate a GPS signal and others didn’t trigger in the right spots.

Besides the technical errors, there were also human ones. We decided to put markers along the route of our locative tour, but some people got lost or continued walking along the path when they were supposed to stop at a particular point to hear the story.

Some of these mishaps were probably because our directions weren’t as spot-on as we thought.

At the end of the tour, we asked participants to fill out surveys. The feedback was a mix of positive and constructive criticism:

- Because of the glare from the sun, many of the pictures we loaded were difficult for our tour-goers to see. Some even said the pictures were a bit of a distraction and that they would have liked fewer of them, so that they could be more engaged with the physical location.

-Many people enjoyed the historical aspects of the tour. The beginning of the tour included historical photos and information about the World’s Fair held near Washington Park in 1893. We also had Chicago historian and lifelong South Side resident, Timuel Black, talk about what the park was like in the early 1900’s. Hearing and seeing historical information and pictures of Washington Park while touring the modern version of the location really seemed to work.

- Though some said there should have been less narration from LoJo team members, another tour-goer complimented our narration by saying it reminded him of something that would have been written by NPR personality Ira Glass, a compliment that our team will graciously accept.

- Some said more user-control would have been great. However, the nature of GPS-based storytelling is that the content is triggered by the location, which has its pluses and minuses. A good alternative for this would be a podcast, which users could download to their mp3 players.

- Many tour-goers also said locative storytelling could be adopted by news organizations, with a little bit of tweaking of the platform and the storytelling itself. Suggestions included more directions to orient users to the location and an improved interface in regards to the GPS technology.

-As for what stories are best told in this format, people said stories about real estate and gentrification worked best. Downloadable neighborhood tours posted on a newspaper’s Web site are the best way for news organizations to monetize and make use of locative storytelling, tour-goers said.

All in all, we think our locative tour was a success. Though it was, literally, a walk in the park, the LoJo team is a bit exhausted. We’ll be using the rest of our Saturday to engage in an activity that’s a little more lax than a walk in the park— a nap in our beds.

By Ki Mae Heussner

So, tomorrow’s the big day.

After reporting, researching, recording, foraging the Chicago History Museum for antique photographs of Washington Park and building our Mediascapes, we’re ready to test our Olympics audio tour with actual people.

Tomorrow morning, in Washington Park (the site of the proposed Olympic stadium), we’re holding a public event to demonstrate the potential of locative storytelling. All those who attend will take a GPS-guided tour of the park to learn about the possible community impacts of hosting the 2016 Olympics in Chicago.

This past week, we split our time between Washington Park and our computer screens. If we weren’t walking around, iPAQs in hand, trying to catch a GPS signal, we were in front of our laptops, editing audio tracks, optimizing photographs and peering at Google Maps of Chicago’s South Side.

We’re grateful for the brave few who have agreed to serve as our guinea pigs tomorrow (it’s not too late to sign up…) and we think the trial should go smoothly.

Still, given all that we’ve learned during the past few weeks about locative storytelling and our trusty GPS devices, we do have a few concerns:

- The reliability of our handy dandy iPAQs. When they work, they’re fantastic - beyond geographically orienting users, they do have the great potential to uniquely connect users to the history and the people of a given place. But they don’t always work properly. They’re often temperamental. Sometimes they’re painfully slow to load. When we take a whole fleet of them out for testing, for unknown reasons a stubborn few will refuse to cooperate.

- The quality of our audio tracks. After much editing of scripts and audio recordings, I think we have some fine examples of audio-based journalism for our test subjects tomorrow. But the non-broadcast majors among us had to learn a new kind of writing and thinking to master this kind of multimedia journalism. We also added in ambient noise, appropriate music and other (free) sounds to further engage our listeners.

- The precision of our GPS trigger zones. The Hewlett-Packard Mscape maker is very user-friendly and powerful. It’s been a crucial tool for our class, as we learn about the limits and opportunities in locative storytelling. But the maps that the program imports for users are not very granular. Through trial and error, we’ve been able to place our GPS trigger zones so that as people walk around the park they hear the narration relevant to their locations. But, future iterations of Mscape maker (and other similar programs), should make it easier for creators of GPS-guided tours to determine the boundaries of their trigger zones.

By Ki Mae Heussner

It should have been just a walk in the park. But since we were testing our newly-hatched Mediascape, it wasn’t yet the smooth experience we were hoping for.

After building our Chicago 2016 Mediascape (or GPS-triggered multimedia tour), we drove to the sites of a few proposed Olympic venues to test our project.

As with our first test run, we created a bit of spectacle. (If there’s a way to track down a GPS signal while still looking dignified, we haven’t yet mastered it.) But, after some maneuvering, we succeeded in getting our GPS events to trigger at each of our designated locations.

Using a Hewlett-Packard iPAQ, our final project will allow users to travel to Washington Park, Douglas Park and Northerly Island to learn about the Olympic venues planned for each site as well as the impacts of those venues on the surrounding communities. In testing our tour this week, we learned how we need to refine and adjust our tour to maximize the user experience.

A few of the technical issues include:

- Losing the GPS signal. We knew tall buildings could block the signal; now we know tall trees can have the same effect.
- Making sure the photos are optimized for the device. If a file is too large, the device can’t display it. (This problem is easily solved.)
- Keeping the devices fully charged. If the battery power is too low, the device can’t search for a GPS signal. (This is also an easily-solved issue.)
- Correctly defining the limits of the GPS trigger zone. Using Hewlett-Packard’s Mscape maker, we imported maps of Washington Park, Douglas Park and Northerly Island, and then highlighted the parts of the map that corresponded to the places we wanted users to experience the media events. We learned, however, that it’s difficult to trigger events at very specific places (like schools or fountains) that don’t appear explicitly on Mscape maker maps. We were able to get around this hurdle by anchoring media events to nearby intersections or prominent landmarks.

In addition to these technical obstacles, we also encountered a few ease-of-use issues. For example:

- Five-minute audio tracks seem reasonable when you’re sitting inside a warm classroom, but when you’re standing in an open field in 40-degree weather, five minutes feels like 15 minutes. We learned that we need to shrink each media event and/or direct users to more comfortable locations, such as stadium seats. (Chicago weather, unfortunately, we can’t control.)
- Driving tours require substantial and specific driving directions. Washington Park, for example, contains a fairly simple web of roadways. But when other cars are factored in, the park could prove hazardous for a driver trying to listen to a Mediascape. We always assumed that a driving tour would not be a solo experience, but we now know that each audio track needs to provide drivers with very clear navigational cues.

By Hilary Powell

Since Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans in 2005, causing several hundred thousand people to evacuate, there have been varying reports on just how many people have returned to the city.

The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center has come up with a visual way to display population indicators, or ways to estimate how many people are living in the city.

One map uses color coding to show how many households are receiving mail. This mailing list data represents the number of residential addresses per block where the post office knows someone actually picks up the mail.

In April, the Center issued a press release stating that the city population had reached 71.8 percent of the pre-Katrina population, up from 49.5 percent in August 2006.

The map and related spreadsheet break down residents actively receiving mail within the city’s 6 parishes.

Another map uses home rebuilding grants to estimate how many residents have returned to salvage their properties.

The Web site’s data expert indicates the population estimates are constantly shifting. A map story form allows for the information to be constantly updated, as well as visually engaging.