Why I hate my cell phone

I lost my cell phone. The details of how that happened are unimportant. The bottom line is, I liked my old phone, though can't remember the model, and now Sprint doesn't offer it anymore.

I purchased a Samsung M320 to replace it, and it might be the worst phone I've ever had.

It looks nice and has a camera, so that's good. But the good ends there.

My major problems:

• A weak battery: I just went to check something on the phone, and it's dead. It's only been on for about 10 hours, having charged for about 12 yesterday. This happens all the time. How can you rely on a phone that dies more often than the Middle East peace process? My old phone could stay on for days.
• Text messaging batching: This may be part of the Gmail effect. My text messages are batched by the people with whom I communicate. That means if I want to find a text message, I have to go the list of who I've recently texted with...if it's still there. The phone has a habit of disapparating texts for no apparent reason.
• Lack of notification: One of the best things about having a cell phone is being able to talk to people when they call you. Unfortunately, this phone does not do that. I'll look at the phone at some point during the day, and see that I missed several calls and texts. I'll discover I've missed a call only when I get a notification that I have a voicemail. This is a major problem.

Soon I'll get off my rear to get a new phone. Maybe it'll be a New Year's resolution. In the meantime, I'll keep on hating this phone.

KC Star Web site enters 21st century, doesn't break

I want to extend kudos to the Web staff of the Kansas City Star for the good looking facelift it recently gave to the paper's site, kansascity.com.

It was a long time coming. In fact, this is the first real significant improvement to the site since I started reading the Star online...in 1999. That year, I went to college and missed my hometown dearly. And with this Internet thing, I was able to stay up-to-date with the goings-on in KC.

Problem was, the Star's site didn't change after that. Sure, there was a tweak here and there, but what resulted was a jumble of content, with breaking news in a corner, surrounded by ads, links, headlines, ads, press releases, pop up ads and even ads that scrolled across the screen. Sections were hard to find, hidden on a sidebar that was difficult to navigate. The day's main headlines were way below the fold, about 3/4 of the way down the page.

They're still there, but with the Star's new layout, you can easily maneuver the site, thanks to section tabs at the top of the page. The Star has also done a nice job in growing its blog farm, with Sam Mellinger's Royals blog at the top of my list. Still, the Chiefs are king in Kansas City (despite their record), and the Star has a nice Chiefs blog (wish I could say more, but my interest in the Chiefs slowed after Elvis Grbac left. For real), Joe Posnanski's gospel, a cool metro blog, and even a community for pet owners. There are many more, as well.

I think its Varsity Zone blog is really cool. It gives stats, scores, photos and news for high schools in the area. It even allows readers to keep their own blogs about high school sports.

The Star's site is getting better. There's still work to do. There's just so much darn content on the front page. Personally, and I might be biased, but I enjoy a nice clean front page.

Also, a big thumbs up to the University Daily Kansan, which, despite the gripes I had with the paper as a student, has a sweet Web site, and just upgraded an already good product.

BeatBlogging to connect with communities

I'm listening to Pat Thornton's interview with the Trib's Dan Honigman, the man behind Colonel Tribune (and a cool dude to boot), and he's talking about the importance of linking to connect people. And I realized that I didn't even blog about my interview with Pat. He talked to me and LJWorld.com's Jonathan Kealing a few weeks ago, and talked to us individually about the beat blogging going on at the Journal-World.

The news organization is doing a lot in terms of micro-reporting in order to a) expand coverage of Lawrence and b) further connect with our readers -- and beyond. Personally, I found writing my blog, Schoolhouse Talk, to be a great experience. How else would I report so much on mock elections at Free State High School?

Now I'm working the overnight shift (and anticipating not getting any sleep today...body clock is adjusting), and I'm hoping to install a graveyard shift blog. It would be great fodder for stories like this, that hold probably a limited interest for most of LJWorld's readers. Think a blotter/marketplace of random ideas. Who knows? It might be fun.

But, to be honest, Schoolhouse Talk has had limited success. Perhaps for two reasons. First, we don't update it enough. We're still trying to figure out what kind of news is blog-worthy. In a market like Lawrence, most school news is big enough for a full story, and we don't want to blog about the lunch menu at the high schools.

Second, I wonder if our audience is blog-savvy. Do they see blogs as a snark market, full of opinion? Do they take our blogs seriously? We've certainly had some success with story leads coming out of the blogs, and some of them, like our KU blog, do quite well. The opportunity is there...buffering, I guess.

Our audience knows a heck of a lot more about Lawrence than we do...we take that seriously...and we can use blogs, as an informal reporting base, to learn more from them. Now we just need to start talking back and forth.

War, wind farms, Obama and MTV: Street Team '08 concludes

I posted my final video for MTV News' (EMMY AWARD-WINNING!) Choose or Lose Street Team '08, a Knight Foundation initiative that used 51 citizen journalists (hate that term) to cover the youth movement during the election.

This project was rewarding, though sometimes frustrating. But looking back on it, it provided me with skills, insight and ideas that I never had before. I can edit a video like a whiz, our Election Day-tweets were posted on Times' Square HD board and I interviewed Ralph Nader. Pretty cool.

Here are some highlights, in no particular order:

• I saw Barack Obama speak three times, including his first (and only) visit to Kansas, the state where his mother was from. Also twice in Kansas City, including a rally with 75,000 people, where I got patted down by Secret Service.
• I embedded with the 1st Infantry Division's Dagger Brigade, as they trained to go to Iraq at Fort Irwin, Calif. I saw first-hand how our troops train for war, reported from the back of a Humvee and had front row seats to some intense combat simulation. I was also invited to embed with them in Iraq, but that looks unlikely.
• Great interview with author Tom Frank, who wrote "What's the Matter with Kansas?" and "The Wrecking Crew." Tom, if you're reading, I'll buy you a beer next time you're in Lawrence.
  
• Ralph Nader came to Lawrence to speak. I didn't do a story on him for MTV, but I got to interview him for LJWorld.com's Schoolhouse Talk blog.
• My MTV blog, Making Kansas Count, was named one of the state's top political blogs by The Washington Post's Chris Cilizza.
• I contributed an article on guerilla journalism to Harvard University's Nieman Reports.
• I met tons of exciting, engaged young people who are working hard (on both sides of the aisle) to make Kansas a better place. Most impressive, I think, are the kids at Greensburg High School, who are rebuilding their town as America's first all-green city.
• Daily Kos linked to a story I did on State Sen. Donald Betts, who was running for Congress at age 30. He, however, got smoked in the general election.

So it's been a long, crazy 11 months. Many thanks to MTV for choosing me to report on Kansas, and major props to my fellow Street Teamers, who were a source of support (both technically and emotionally).

Twitterank: A case study in familiarity

My new position at the Journal-World means I got home at 6:15 a.m. and slept to about 4. Just like college.

But that meant I missed out of a lot Twitter chatter, which I've apparently become addicted to. A popular topic on the Twitter boards today was a thing called Twitterank, which purportedly rates your popularity on the micro-blogging site.

Turns out, it might be a phishing scam, stealing your password and distributing content under your username.

I was typing in my Twitter ID to see what this thing is when I read a note saying it's a scam. (PS: Nobody's totally sure yet, but there have been reports of phishing after folks logged on to the site, which asks for your ID and password)

Why would anyone be that eager to share their password with an unknown third-party site? Is it vanity? Or just a familiarity with a community that is by and large congenial, helpful and eager to share information?

I would never give out my SSN or bank account number to a strange third party, but I find myself doling out my Twitter password to a variety of sites to a) see what they are and b) further navigate the social web.

While these tools are utterly cool (if not unpractical for most daily uses), it begs a bigger question about how we use the social web. It's a pretty well-established fact that many parents are wary of their kids using MySpace and Facebook, lest predators view their information and photos. So why are we adults, who should know better, so keen to give out private information?

Stranger danger, right?

People still want newspapers

After watching hundreds of Obama supporters record the moment by snapping photos of each other and the big-screen TV declaring an Obama victory, I came to work today with one goal: Get a copy of today's New York Times.

I walked into our newsroom and picked up a copy of the Journal-World and the University Daily Kansan. But when I left to walk across the street to Borders on a coffee and newspaper run, I saw that the stack of J-Ws – which is never empty – was, in fact, empty. Our staffers raided it.

So I left to get the NYT, and if possible, the Kansas City Star. They were sold out at Borders. They were sold out at Starbucks. Across the city, honor boxes are empty. And other papers are increasing their runs and making extra copies. People want newspapers as historic record. They want them for their news.

They might go online everyday, but this shows that papers are still relevant. After all, it's just not the same printing out an article to show your kids and grandkids.

Personally, I've sent my friends in Chicago on a mission to grab a copy of today's Trib and Sun-Times.

UPDATE: Of course, I would be remiss not to mention other recent events that have sparked similar rushes on news stands: The Phillies' World Series victory created such a high demand that Philly papers printed more. The Journal-World and Kansan both printed thousands more copies after KU won the NCAA basketball championship. People still like having that tangible thing in their hands...even if they can't admit it.

MTV's Election Day Multimedia Bonanza

With Election Day finally upon us, MTV's Street Team '08 is gearing up for the day we've been looking forward to for almost a year. And it's going to be awesome.

We have reporters in every state and Washington, D.C., and we'll be filing reports throughout the day on think.mtv.com and chooseorlose.com (they redirect to each other). These will be video reports from polling stations, interviews with voters, analysis of the voting process...and we'll be using Twitter as a primary reporting tool for much of the day.

MTV built a Twittervision platform for Choose or Lose, and MTVNews.com, and we'll be tweeting throughout the day. It's a wonderful culmination of the social media tools we've been working with since January, and is a reflection of the timely reporting we did on Super Tuesday, the RNC and DNC, and the debates.

Give @streetteam08 a follow, be sure to visit Choose or Lose...and don't forget to VOTE!