Friday squibs

I have collected far too many links for a single post, so I may spread them out over the weekend.

• The Rise of Cloud Agents. A whole new concept to get my mind around: software to help deal with the massive amounts of data around us. Some implications for media here, although I’m not yet sure how extensive they may be.
• More than photos: The changing role of photojournalists in Canada. A piece at the NPAC*APPC website that includes this quote from the photo editor of the Globe & Mail: “There will never be another still-only photographer job in Canada anywhere.” No response to the piece in the site’s forum yet, but I’m sure some is coming.
• Lots left to learn after a year of learning. A very nice piece from Steve Buttry on what he learned this year and why he’s no closer to his younger self’s idea that one day he would move from learning to knowing.
• A look back at 2008. A huge list of Mac resources at UsingMac.com.
• Forget Survival: The Journalist’s Guide to Owning 2009 and Beyond. A good, much-pointed-to piece at New Media Bytes. Lots of good advice and make sure you set aside 15 minutes to watch the video of Gary Vaynerchuk’s presentation.
• Matt Harding: Where The Hell Is Matt? an ‘Elaborate Hoax’. Speaking of video presentations, this is absolutely brilliant.
• My list of must-read blogs for wired journalists. Elaine Helm has just put together a short list of essential bloggers, at the request of j-school students. That’s a pretty good starter set.
• My ideal media needs to be “crowdfiltered” and “crowdproduced”. Jeff Mignon has some solid thinking on what he wants from media, and it sounds like the type of media that many of us are trying to build. Related: Kirk Lapointe, ME of the Vancouver Sun, likes a lot of it but trips over the choice of filters.
• My hopes for journalists in the future. Gina Chen’s post in one of a number good start-of-the-year posts out there, enhanced by some smart comments. Related: New Year’s Resolutions Every College Newspaper Should Make, from Emily Kostic, which applies to more than just college newspapers.
• Tools for news. A growing list of tools in every storytelling category imaginable, makes this a must-bookmark page. Invaluable. Creator Chris Amico explains how it came about in this blog post

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