This blog was hacked again … the same sort of injection hack as before. I found the primary offending file and removed it, but that isn’t a long-term fix. I’ll have to check this evening on whether there is yet another WordPress security fix and go through another upgrade process.

At least this time, I seem to have found the offending hidden text spam before Google did. I think.

The GateHouse Media sales and marketing team put together this promotional video.

Local news is a vertical.

To succeed going forward, local newspapers need to treat local news as a vertical product.

Newspapers, traditionally, are horizontal, serving many interests and needs with a single product.

Web sites need to be more singularly focused.

Look at the way Glam.com now owns the fashion vertical, or how American Idol has create a vertical for own product that now covers multiplatforms (TV, the Web, CDs, books, concert tours, mobile phones, etc.).

Local newspapers should aim for the same ownership of local news and information across multiplatforms, and especially dive deep on the Web — breaking news, video, community participation, databases, classifieds, IYP, and every thing else a publisher, editor or content producer can think of to ensure complete ownership of local. That’s what hyperlocal really means.

The last thing you should do is outsource community participation. You need to own your relationships with your best customers — your readers and your contributors, the people in the local community that make it what it is — a community. Letting another company own that relationship is a strategic mistake of monumental proportions.

That’s why Media News signing a deal to turn over commenting functions to Topix is just dumb beyond belief.

Ironically, Media News owns the Denver Post, which of late has been doing a fantastic job of trying to become the hub of community conversation, both through its main news site and its innovative Neighbors site. Those efforts are completely incompatible, as I see it, with the Topix business model, which Chris Tolles is quite blunt about: “We’re aiming to be the number one local news site on the web …”

There can be only one number one, and if it’s Topix, it ain’t your newspaper.com.

I’ve written about Topix before. Topix is not your friend. If your newspaper.com serves small, defined geographic communities, and you are not actively prohibiting Topix from crawling your content, you are giving away your crown jewels for pretty much nothing in return. The last thing you want to do is turn over your commenting system to a vendor with an express intent of beating you in your own market.

UPDATE: Upon further reflection, my strong use of the word “own” could be misconstrued. I don’t mean “own” in the command-and-control sense of traditional business models, but rather being in such a strong position that you’re a the center of the community conversation. That’s more than a business model, to me; that’s a core mission of a healthy local journalistic enterprise.

And a point I forgot to make is that comments are just one spoke in the wheel of creating online community - - if done right, they lead to things like profiles and social networking and stronger bonds with the community and more contributions from community members. That’s why comments are so vital to a web site’s success and shouldn’t be outsourced.

And as the first commenter on this post has already pointed out — partnerships are great and necessary and should be pursued, but only where they make sense, and partnering core functionality to Topix makes no sense.

UPDATE: Editor’s Weblog linked to this post, which is where Chris Tolles, CEO of Topix, chose to respond. And I responded back. And he responded. And I responded. And there may be more. Of course, I can’t share our much more entertaining behind the scenes private e-mail exchange.

If you want an example of how to cover a major breaking story in a blog, Jason La Canfora did a great job of covering the apparent murder of Sean Taylor.

This isn’t straight news reporting. This is both personal and professional. This is reporting what you know when you know. Some times items need updated. Some times there are new developments worthy of new posts. Some times you need to answer reader comments and e-mails with points of clarification. This is serving first and foremost the public responsibility to provide important and relevant information.

Full archive here.

If you ever want to point a finger at the person to blame for my getting into blogging, it would not be incorrect to point it at Ken Layne.

Layne was one of the first and best journalist-bloggers, starting in something like 1999. (I’ve known Ken since the early 1990s when he was a reporter at another small daily in San Diego County and played in a band with my high school chum and roommate.)

Click that link above and you’ll find a blog. But not his old blog. Either by accident or design, all of his old posts have disappeared from the blogosphere. In other words, you can’t read his brilliant posts about crows and religious politics. Now, Layne posts something ocassionally, and occassionally I read it.

He’s one of the best damn writers I know, and he should blog more.

At least AOL was smart enough to give him a column.

Thanks to Ken, I met Matt Welch, formerly of the Los Angeles Times, now returning to Reason Magazine, and already getting promo from the Washington Post. Matt also has a book out. Rumor has it Matt has some new music coming out, too. If you can’t wait, there’s always Ken Layne and the Corvids.

TechCrunch provides a guest post from Dan Ackerman Greenberg on “how to make your video viral.”

Without a touch of irony or remorse, Mr. Greenberg then goes through a long list of techniques that includes creating fake identities, gaming tag systems, paying bloggers to embed videos and spamming e-mail lists.

The post is a good reminder of why it’s important for sites that plan to host social media need to be vigilant about identity and conscientious about creating systems that are difficult (making it impossible is impossible) to game.

Obviously, YouTube isn’t doing enough in this regard.

It isn’t that marketers would create video with the intention of making it viral that bugs me; it’s that marketers would engage in unethical practices to try and artificially inflate a video’s popularity.

There are more than 300 comments on the post, most of them blasting Mr. Ackerman for his unethical behavior, which Mr. Ackerman clearly doesn’t get:

What we do is grease the viral wheels. If that means commenting back and forth between fake users, who cares? It’s all about entertainment - we’re just making the whole experience entertaining, not just the video itself.

Of course, journalists take ethics very seriously, but they might be surprised at how important ethics are to the wider tech world. Google, for example, works hard to ensure search results are delivered in a non-biased way; many in the tech world take seriously the ethics of “radical transparency,” and the whole open source movement has given rise to a culture of collaboration that depends on giving due credit.

So it’s not surprising that so many of the TechCrunch commenters would have a problem with Mr. Greenberg’s business model.

It’s situations like this that encourage me to further believe that those of us who are working to build systems that depend on identity and transparency will benefit long-term. Increasingly, I believe the public will gravitate toward systems and sites they trust, as they become more educated about the ways in which less ethical operators try to manipulate and falsify.

I fully expect, btw, for YouTube to go to school on this post and figure out ways to tighten it’s own systems to make these practices harder to pursue, just as Google is constantly revising its search algorithms to make it harder on search spammers to succeed.

TechCrunch did a fine public service in posting this piece. It’s very educational, but not in the ways Mr. Greenberg intended, I’m sure.

Comment trolls — the nasty, often race baiting, empty-headed-bashing people who often pollute online dialogue — are the bane of news sites that allow comments on stories.

One of the most effective, and proven methods, for bringing such behavior under control is for a newspaper staff members to closely monitor comments and have the power to delete and ban. It’s kind of like fighting graffiti — the quicker you paint over the marred wall, the less likely it is to be hit again.

Some good technology, such as profanity filters, comment rating and reputation, help, too. That only gets you so far.

I’ve long believed that the most effective, and so far least employed, tool is tying comments to identity.

When we brought participation to Bakersfield.com, we tied participation to “persona,” by that we meant allowing a person to create whatever identity he or she wanted, weather real or pseudonymous. The theory being that if people have an identity to protect, they will behave better.

My desire to do that grew out of my experience with comments in Ventura.

Here’s some psychological research to suggest that this is the right track (via techcrunch):

Social psychologists have known for decades that, if we reduce our sense of our own identity – a process called deindividuation – we are less likely to stick to social norms. For example, in the 1960s Leon Mann studied a nasty phenomenon called “suicide baiting” – when someone threatening to jump from a high building is encouraged to do so by bystanders. Mann found that people were more likely to do this if they were part of a large crowd, if the jumper was above the 7th floor, and if it was dark. These are all factors that allowed the observers to lose their own individuality.

Social psychologist Nicholas Epley argues that much the same thing happens with online communication such as email. Psychologically, we are “distant” from the person we’re talking to and less focused on our own identity. As a result we’re more prone to aggressive behaviour, he says.

So, the more we can engineer participation so that we close the gap between loss of individuality and sense of identity, the better chance we have at maintaining civil dialogue.

After leaving Bakersfield, I came to the conclusion that “persona” wasn’t enough. This is no reflection on anything that has happened in Bakersfield. I just have come to believe that news sites should require real identity. No more explicit acceptance of pseudonymous participation.

Journalisticly, I think this is the responsible thing to do. Many of the conversations news sites host are important to the civic life of our communities, and people who read these comments have a right to know who their friends, neighbors and leaders (no sock puppets) are who drive the conversations.

In a news story, we wouldn’t allow an anonymous comment without a good reason (and there are far fewer anonymous sources in local news columns than major news outlets), so why allow them, unvetted, in comments on stories?

Comments on stories are supposed to serve a primary purpose of advancing the story, not just providing a forum for rants and raves (though, by default, they do that, too). Anonymity, pseudonymous or otherwise, runs counter to the spirit of robust, honest, civic conversation.

That’s part of the journalistic case for requiring real identity.

But returning to the psychological case above, it seems to me that if we make our forums a place where people expect to be dealing with each other on a real identity basis, especially in smaller communities, won’t they more often naturally be more civil?

While the psychological research makes it apparent that even persona is better than anonymity, real identity should work even better. I think.

As for enforcing real identity:

• Facebook is kind of showing us the way, and lessening the barrier for full disclosure (especially for younger readers, who are less hung up on privacy than older readers).
• In my own experience with user registration systems, local users of a local newspaper sites are surprisingly honest about their real names and addresses when they register to read news. I think we’ll see only a slight drop off when registration is tied to participation.
• When you require real identity in terms and conditions, you know have another tool to justify banning trolls. Trolls almost always try to game the system, and they’re easy to spot.
• Generally, it’s easy to spot people who are trying to participate anonymously. You can spot check your registration database and delete obviously bogus accounts. It’s quick and easy to do in a well designed system.

I think over time, we are going to see fewer and fewer online communities that allow completely anonymous participation. Most are going to follow the persona model or the real identity model. Users will increasingly accept these requirements, either because they are common, or because they recognize the value of identity in maintaining a vibrant community.

Most people don’t like seeing their communities trashed. They are more than willing to help us keep things neat and tiddy, but they also look to us to provide the manpower and technological solutions that makes running healthy communities possible.

BTW: You’ll note that nowhere in this post did I use the term “virtual community.” In healthy communities, there is nothing virtual about them. They are very real, and very important. The old term “virtual community” demeans online communities, which are just as important to the participants and members as any off-line community.

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves beautifully equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. - Eric Hoffer

There’s been a bit of chatter the past couple of weeks about a speech that Rob Curley gave recently. Curley talks about the difference between mindset and skill set. He also notes how frequently some of us run across recent j-school grads who are close minded about online.

Rather than pick on any one person’s response to these comments, I would rather fashion a general clarification.

To me, mindset is one of the most critical issues facing journalism today.

In his speech, Curley makes it clear what he means by skill set, but I think some people are still conflating mindset and skill set. Just because you know Flash, or can operate a video camera or hack a little PHP doesn’t mean, per se, that you have the right mind set.

A while back, Guy Kawasaki pointed me to this great article about mindset.

Essentially, there are two kinds of mindsets. There is the fixed mindset and the growth mindset.

The fixed mindset might say something like, “I got into this business to be a writer, not a videographer.” The growth mindset might say, “Video? Cool! Let me give it a try.”

Or, the fixed mindset doesn’t believe newspapers are under an existential threat — rather it’s corporate greed, or getting away from “core values” that is causing industry woes, or some other force that can only be resisted by “keep doing what we’re doing.” The fixed mindset isn’t even willing to entertain the idea that maybe we must make some radical alterations to how we define journalism.

The fixed mindset says, “there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to put out this print paper and update online.” The growth mindset says, “what can I do differently to work more efficiently so I can focus on the web?”

The fixed mindset hates conversational media, especially blogs, and wonders why we’re wasting time on video.

A growth mindset is always willing to try new things and admit that maybe the way people interact with media now is fundamentally different.

But there is a deeper level of mindset that is related, but different.

Often, those of us who talk about people who “get it,” think we “get it” and expect people to understand what we mean by “get it.”

Sure, having a growth mindset is a prerequisite to getting it, but that only takes you so far.

Getting it means that not only do you understand that the way people interact with media is now fundamentally different; it also means you understand how people use media now.

If you get it, you see the trends.

• You understand that blogging is the most successful online publishing tool because blogs are immediate, conversational and egalitarian.
• You understand that online video is successful because it is immediate, conversational and egalitarian.
• You understand that for younger people, being able to make connections with friends and family is essential to how they view the world.
• You understand that technology is changing fast, and all the growth patterns point toward a media world that is even more distributed and conversational than what we have today.

Furthermore,

• You have used conversational media and have come to see it as a better way to report and share news, because it is more meaningful to the people who participate (to the fixed mindset, this will seem preposterous).
• You participate yourself — you probably have a blog, but you certainly read several blogs; you’ve shot and uploaded some personal video; you’re on MySpace or Facebook (or at least LinkedIn);
• You have several online-only friends (you’ve never met in person);
• You’ve experienced watching a news story grow through the participation (submissions) of readers.
• You’re not chained to pre-Web notions of definitive-voice journalism (”we know better than you what the news is — there’s no point in discussing it”); you understand you’re no longer in control of the news agenda.
• You don’t make “quality” a religion and refuse to try new forms of reporting because it doesn’t immediately meet your quality standards. You are willing to try and fail, and keep trying until you get it right, and you don’t resent others doing the same.

There are many skills that the modern journalist needs — from being able to write a good story, to where to point the camera, to how to set up a blog, but I’ve interviewed people before who have web skills, but they still didn’t have a growth mindset.

We very much need more experienced journalists to expand their skill sets, but if they don’t also work on developing the growth mindset that goes keeping pace in a turbulent media world, then we’re still going to have a hard time succeeding.

Will ebooks be a hit?

Jeff Bezos thinks so.

The Kindle is equipped with a Wi-Fi connection that taps into an Amazon e-book store, which users can access to purchase new electronic books–and Amazon has reportedly signed onto a deal with Sprint for EVDO access. Additionally, the device comes with a headphone jack for audiobooks, as well as an e-mail address.

There a have been other attempts to launch ereaders, but they’ve pretty much fizzled in the marketplace.

Can such a release from Amazon work any better? I think so. Maybe. There are some nice synergies for Amazon: Strong customer base of avid readers who are tech savvy and an ample supply of inventory.

I like books and have a hard time imagining doing that much reading electronically, but there was a time I couldn’t imagine watching video on a tiny iPod screen. Now that I have one, I watch more online video than ever.

There may also be good news for newspapers:

The company is also said to have forged agreements with somewhere between 50 and 100 newspaper publishers, in addition to the daily New York Times and Wall Street Journal features. Kindle owners are expected to be able to select from a long list of publications for automatic download.

Our industry has a long history over scheming for inkless paper delivery, but I’m not sure consumers are as eager to experience a newspaper on a device such as this as some hope.

Think about the different formats of books and newspapers — a book is generally just text. It’s really just one long scroll. But newspapers are broken up into discreet chunks presented in a way to feed into a broadsheet or tabloid. And ads are so important. Can that layout be preserved in one of these devices in a way that users will find comfortable and efficient?

I’ll believe it when I see it.

It’s important to remember, I think, that technology won’t necessarily be our savior. Each new advance brings its own challenges, and consumers will ultimately decide the most attractive use for each new device. Publishers have very little control over how digital devices will be used, or how their products will be perceived.

Generally, I don’t worry about TV posing much competition to newspapers when it comes to online video (meaning, newspapers that are aggressive about online video), but if more TV stations hire guys like Nick Belardes to run their online operations, that balance could shift.

Nick is shooting some pretty nice not-like-tv video for TurnTo23.com in Bakersfield.

• Superheroes
• Batman movie
• Day of the dead

Too bad he’s stuck using the crappy web site IBS supplies.

I’ve never heard of Aaron Barnhart, but he sure is smart.

It is tired. Why do you think blogs vs. print issue has such legs? Navel gazing on the part of reporters/bloggers?

That’s partly to blame, I’m sure—but I think there are deeper reasons. With bloggers, I think it’s simple. They like to see themselves as part of something big, grand and revolutionary. Many, I think, genuinely believe they are transforming the media by challenging the mainstream media (MSM), although I’m not sure there is much hard proof of that. Beyond that, that anti-MSM stance is the fire that keeps their blogs going. It informs a lot of what they write.

Many print journos, on the other hand, don’t understand blogging and see bloggers as irritants, people who criticize their work but also wouldn’t have material for their blogs if not for the MSM. Meanwhile, every newsroom in America now has top management beating the drum for their staff to “do blogs,” even though it’s clear that many journalists in print and TV haven’t the foggiest idea how or why they should “do” one. (Witness the trail of busted blogs across news organizations.)

I just spoke on blogs to a features editors’ convention so I know that interest remains high. Editors are not dumb, they know their staff should be doing them, but that many don’t want to and many staff blogs go untended.

But journalists are torn on this. They know money is flowing out the door. They know a lot of it is going to online (though not necessarily enriching the people who criticize their work so passionately). They know they need to get with the program. But many aren’t sure how to proceed, or if ultimately their expenditure of effort online will be worth the effort.

Via Romenesko

So, for the first time I know of, a site I control has been hacked.

I got a message from Google today saying howardowens.com was being removed from the index for use of hidden text (in this case, links and text for viagra).

I’m like, WTF?

Sure enough, I checked the source code and there it was.

As near as I can tell, somebody managed to get FTP access to my server and modified the following files: classes.php, default-filters.php, functions.php, gettext.php, wp-db.php. The hacker also created a file called class-mail.php, and that file was encrypted.

I’ve restored backup files and changed the FTP passwords.

I’m posting this to warn other WP bloggers about the exploit. Check those files. Make sure you’re FTP password is strong, disable anonymous FTP, and make sure there’s no hidden text in your source code.

Hopefully, it won’t be too much of a hassle to get re-indexed by Google.

UPDATE II: You don’t see update I, because it wasn’t part of my database back up, but it noted that after talking with my host, I learned that it wasn’t likely an FTP hack, but a WordPress hack, because I hadn’t upgraded WP. The upgrade is now complete … fair less painless than I anticipated (which is why I hadn’t done it before), and things seem back to normal.

The Shelby Star continues to pursue an interesting and aggressive online strategy.

Check out the Star Car.

Here’s four reasons why newspaper can beat televison stations in online video.

1. More feet on the street:  In large markets, newspapers can equip more reporters with video-capable cameras, and you don’t need expensive cameras to produce good online video; in small markets, TV isn’t going to cover many local stories;
2. TV can’t cover a story without sending out a “crew,” which means they cover only stories that they’ve pre-screened as being video worthy, worthy of the time to send a crew out to a location, which means they miss a lot of good stuff that “print” reporters will naturally stumble across — quantity means more choices for online video watchers, which is a distinct and huge advantage;
3. For newspaper reporters, there is no pre-conceived idea of perfect TV video, so any experiment goes;
4. Newspaper reporter shooters can give sources a chance to speak for themselves, making the video more personal and more meaningful than what TV will do with the same material.

Or maybe this isn’t about newspapers beating television, but why newspapers should be confident about video, because in the age of disruption, newspapers can approach video with a mindset that the natural competitors won’t see as a threat, and we’ve got to press our advantages where we can get them.

Any television people who read this post and don’t get the point — you’re just proving my point.

So I visited mecca today, aka, Lawrence, Kansas.

You know, the place that gave us Lawrence.com and made Rob Curley famous.

Innovation in Lawrence hasn’t stopped just because Rob left. Dan Cox and his team in Lawrence are doing a great things.

I learned stuff today about what they’re planning and how they’re working that left me truly impressed. These are smart guys who really get it. They are also realistic and not resting on the laurels of past Digital Edgies. Expect changes.

One of the things Dan and his team have launched recently is a product called Marketplace. I think it’s just smart. Simple, elegant, functional, and built with the small market advertiser in mind.

If I wasn’t impressed before, or not impressed with what Dan shared about the product’s performance, here’s a little transaction that knocked me off my feet:

My wife and I love mid-century modern furniture, so when I noticed a mid-century modern furniture store in town, I had to make time in my day to visit it.

After looking around, a woman approached me and I asked about a web site where I might be able to order stuff, and she gave me a card with a URL, www.blueheronfurniture.com. Then a gentleman approached me and we chatted a bit about my interest, and he handed me another card, saying something like, “rather than go to our web site, go here.”

On the back of the card was scribbled, “ljworld.com, marketplace, search for ‘furniture.’”

Can you imagine a local merchant recommending your IYP/directory product over their own web site?

To Dan and everybody in Lawrence, thanks for letting me poke around your shop today.

Just note the quote (via Lost Remote)

Both AOL and CBS are backing away from plans to offer high definition video online, reports NewTeeVee. “We are finding, generally speaking, people don’t care as much about the video quality. Right now, it damn well better work quick and fast,” said Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive.

Video needs to be interesting, engaging, informative … you don’t need HD cameras (or players) to do that.