links for 2010-01-07

one of her tasks as social media correspondent was to make the role extinct – to encourage all journalists in the team to use these tools and not make it the responsibility of one individual

Lesson: Keep your Twitter questions occasional; followers shouldn't feel interrogated every morning.

top five tips to getting the most out of FOI.

The need for community-level reporting platforms seem to become increasingly evident with every new local newspaper that shuts down. But do they have any commercial viability in the long run? And is there a workable model of mutual collaboration with mainstream media?

The petty politics of every day relationships are exacerbated on the social web because we are making very limited assessments of people based on their written words. People seem quicker to judge, and harsher in their reactions without thinking about the real live human beings behind those little icons. I’ve been guilty too.

We've signed up leading writers, respected authorities in their fields and asked them to let rip. We want them to tell the stories that the churning maelstrom of the old-fashioned newsroom never allowed. We're interested in quality, not filling space. We're not worried about what's in the other papers this morning, we want to be told something we don't know already.

In organizing your community, don't fall into the trap that equates physical proximity with community. Just because people live near one another, that fact doesn't bond those people into a community. Communities form around common needs and purposes, as will yours. So start by identifying what you can offer a community and which community might need what you can offer.