Chris Snider

I noticed Twitter’s new Blackbird Pie feature today for the first time. Have you ever come across a great tweet and wanted to share it with your blog readers? I have. And until today I had to take a screengrab of said tweet to post to my blog. Not anymore. Twitters Blackbird Pie allows me [...]

The Sunday paper is still a money-maker. With all those circulars and real estate ads, it’s clear why newspapers are putting most of their promotional efforts into increasing circulation of the Sunday product. More and more, papers are now using their web sites to promote the Sunday print product. Some (see the Indianapolis Star image [...]

I sat in on a Poynter webinar on multimedia tools for journalists – from point-and-shoot cameras to $21,000 3-D video cameras. While I don’t see the Des Moines Register springing for the 3-D camera anytime soon, I did find some equipment that would suit us just fine. Here’s a list of the items that caught [...]

I’m honored to once again be teaching journalists about new media tools on Feb. 13 at Drake University. I’m even more excited about who will be joining me for the workshop. Nathan Wright will be teaching and answering your questions about how journalists can use social media. And Pete Jones will talk about how he [...]

This week: Great advice from Twitter, getting started in social media, Wordpress themes and free multimedia tools.

It’s difficult to remember every possible tool you can use when news breaks, which is why we have a breaking new checklist to follow at DesMoinesRegister.com. We don’t do everything on the list in every situation, but it’s a good reminder of the many tools that are available, both to promote the news and to [...]

Have you been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for someone to grab your hand and pull you into the new digital world of journalism? Well, wait no more. Here are 15 ways you can jump in right now. 1. Read Chris Brogan’s blog. 2. Read this one post by Rob Curley. 3. Read Mashable. You [...]

I tuned into my first journchat last Monday night in-between helping my Drake students with their final web projects – and I was impressed for a couple of reasons. First of all, I love the concept: “The mission of #journchat is to keep an ongoing, open dialogue between journalists, bloggers and public relations professionals.” If [...]

We can’t add more hours to the day, but we can work more efficiently. Here are some tools that could help reporters be more productive. 1. Google Reader Don’t waste your time going to dozens (or hundreds) of web sites every day. Use the RSS feeds from those sites and just check one web site [...]

Who says you need a staff of developers and tons of time to make a great web site? These tools are easy to use and easy to add to your site. 1. Coveritlive.com CoverItLive allows you to blog live from an event (you can even do it from your iPhone). It’s also a great tool [...]