Sometimes you need a good inspirational kick in the pants, and this morning I got just that courtesy of Adam Westbrook.

With all the turmoil of the current economic climate, it can be easy to forget that we are in a very exciting time for journalism.  The tools for storytelling have never been more vast, varied and accessible.

We are globally connected, which means good stories can reach people all over the world.

Good stories can change the world.

You can change the world.

Enjoy

If like me, you are a big fan of multimedia groups like mediastorm and the Bombay Flying Club, you’ll be interested to know that another team has popped up on the web.

Story4.org has a nice piece on their site about Big Sur and they are currently working on pieces for The Women’s Foundation of California and the Health Improvement Project in Santa Cruz County. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

Cool visualization created by scanning twitter feeds for “just arrived” or “Just landed” and then matching that up with home locations from the twitter profile.  The data is obviously an estimate and there is no way to confirm a set that large, but it does give a window into how some of these social networks like twitter could be useful for giving a sense of what is happening now, or give an entry way into a story.

Check out the visualization here.

I can’t get enough of hockey right now.  These Stanly Cup Playoffs have D.C. in a tizzy.  As of right now, the Caps and Pens are six games into an exciting series that will end on Wed. night.  I bought tickets for game 7 and paid more than I have ever paid for a single sporting event.  Which got me to thinking of my hockey roots.

I grew up watching the Rochester Americans in western N.Y., but I didn’t begin to really love and understand hockey until I went to school in Toronto.  In Toronto, the Maple Leafs are bigger than the Red Sox in Boston.  The Leafs are the true #1 home team.  Because of this love of the leafs, tickets to the game are hard to come by and are usually reserved for those who can afford them, or are connected to the companies that by boxes and blocks of seats in large swaths.

For the rest of us, there is the Ontario Hockey League.  The OHL is fast, hard-hitting hockey by young players eager to prove they have the stuff it takes to play in the NHL.  And most importantly, tickets are plentiful and affordable.  It’s hockey for the common man.

This video gets right to the heart of that and does so with strong storytelling.  This video’s strength (like most good videos) comes from its audio.  LOTS of good natural sound.  Personally, I want every hockey video to start with the sound of the stick handling the pick and the pull of hockey tape.  The sound just takes you there.

The use of music is also sparing and fitting and isn’t used as a crutch to fill gaps where no natural sound was obtained.  My only complaint would be that I would have liked some audio from the ice, but I understand how tricky this can be.  Not every crew carries a parabolic mic in their kit.  I certainly dont.

The video is definitely worth checking out whether you love hockey or not.

The Webby nominees have been anounced, and while the “Big Issue” project I worked on for most of the general election didn’t get a finalist spot, it did receive honoree status.

Here is the list of other honorees in the category.

And a video promo for the “Big Issue” project.

First the AP came under fire after announcing it was going to target those who misappropriate AP content.  Leading some to believe the AP was about to go to war with google.

Secondly, an AP exec poured fuel on the fire by issuing a cease and desist letter to an affiliate who was embedding AP videos from YouTube on its page.  (The AP freely distributes the video content on its YouTube page.  Oops!)

Jim Kennedy, the AP’s V.P. of strategic planing, spoke with Peter Kafka at MediaMemo and told him that “To the untrained eye it looks like we’re stupid.”

The AP also released this FAQ about the news from earlier in the week in an effort to clear up some of the confusion.

One of the more interesting parts of this development is the goal of creating “topic pages.”  One of the greatest internal struggles at the AP (at least in the mulitmeida circle) is grouping related content across multiple formats for our clients so they can easily identify the entire AP report on a topic.

We as a company may make some boneheaded moves when it comes to the web.  But the truth is, the AP is the backbone of American journalism and is  one of the few news organization with a clearly defined mission of rising the tide and raising all ships.

This one from landline TV:

And another from East Bay Express:

Eve Batey of the San Francisco appeal even refers to newspapers as “sexy.” Really?

Once the conversation turns to the future, things start to get interesting. I especially liked the bits on international news in “what content do people want?” and the discussion of the need to contextualize rich database applications in the “database journalism” section.