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[etsuri]

Web Summit 2014 - The Verdict

It has now been a week since we at Etsuri attended the Web Summit in Dublin. As we wrote in our previous post reviewing TechCrunch Disrupt in London we decided that we would tell you all about the Web Summit as well. Rather than immediately write a reactionary review on our time there we though it best to wait a little bit to see what we truly gained (and lost) by attending.

The Costs

Again we will look at the costs. We got a place at ALPHA which meant that our tickets were considerable cheaper than they would be otherwise, with the price being just shy of £1,1200. This of course does not include the flights to Dublin from London which with Ryanair cost us around an additional £50. The most expensive cost in the end was accommodation. Hotels and even Airbnb (which we ended up using) took the opportunity to raise prices by up to 600%! We ended up at a rather fortunate location 20 minute walk from the summit itself but did cost us £422. The total cost with the added travel and food costs meant we spent around £1,800 total. For us quite a hefty sum, so do think financially is there something better you can or should spend it on.

The Summit

The Web Summit is massive. It is at least 10 times larger than TechCrunch Disrupt, with approximately 20,000–22,000 people attending. However, this was split over three separate venues about a 10 minute walk from each other. As it is so spread out it is in fact quite easy to not meet as many people as one would expect unless one seeks them out.

We exhibited on the second day (fortunately as you will read about later) and were put on the side with all other news startups. While we were almost next to the centre stage we were quite a bit away from everyone else. The downside was less people would pass us but the ones who came tended to actually be interested.

Web summit was, in the same way as TechCrunch was, hundreds of startups trying to sell themselves. While we had less space than the last exhibition we had enough and the startups around us all accommodated each other well and the atmosphere was good between us.

Again we got very favourable feedback from everyone we spoke to although it was less people. We were happy enough to also have one person who very intelligently questioned our product critically, and gave us far more feedback than many other polite comments. Unlike TechCrunch we spoke to far less people from the media and they were harder to find.

Problems

The biggest issue of them all was the severe lack of reliable wifi. Those unlucky enough to exhibit on the first day often found themselves without any internet whatsoever — obviously crucial for hundreds of the companies there. The fact that it had already been a problem the previous year makes it even more incomprehensible that they would allow any such risk to happen. The second day was much better, but two of our phones had to rely on roaming and a shared wifi hotspot in order to work.

The Good Things

Due to the vast amount of people you are bound to find the people you need as long as you do a bit of work yourself to find them. From other budding startups to more established companies to the press and investors and mentors you will find all types of people here.

The presentations compared to TechCrunch were of a far higher quality. Considering the amount Web Summit had (at least 300 although I admit I did not count) there were bound to be some exellent ones and we were fortunate not too see any that weren’t up to par. The sheer magnitude of presentations though means it is impossible to see all the ones you want and the downside is also that they were all rather short. The presentations were usually between 15–25 minutes and often we would wish for more. To the speakers’ credit none that we saw seemed rushed and were well prepared.

The event was also very well organised (at the event itself) and even though it was quite a walk to get the food it was of a very high quality. It’s just a shame there was not more of it.

Overall

TechCrunch gave us the opportunity to get in touch with several investors and also journalists interested in writing about us. It remains to be seen how far we will get those that we got in touch with at the Web Summit and will probably take a few days longer as it did with TechCrunch.

It has been a very good learning experience and we met several interesting people that we can definitely work with in the future. Whether it was actually work it financially and time-wise is another matter. The financials we discussed in the previous post, but time is also very important. Ultimately the Web Summit took about a week out of our ‘normal’ lives but more importantly the rush to get development ready for these two events may not have been worth it. The time could have better been spent properly working on deeper development and creating something more complete rather than making sure what we have is presentable but not to the high quality standard we strive for. Many will not have this problem but many others also might. If your product will not be ready or you think it might be cutting it too close you may want to rethink attending such an event. The added stress and time used of having something to show may not be worth it.

Advice for future attendees

Some simple advice for possible future attendees:

Have your product ready with several weeks buffer time just in case. It may seem like common sense but many still work the night before just to get it ready.

Do not attend alone! It will exhaust you and you will need someone manning the stand and another to walk around, network, speak to people, get food and just take a break.

Never rely on provided internet connection! Always have a back-up and a back-up to the back-up (our first back-up connection did not work until the night after exhibiting). If you can make sure you have an offline demo that can be presented.

Get out there! Don’t rely on people coming to you — make the effort of due diligence, know who you want to approach and find them if you can. These events are not cheap but if you put the work in it will be worth it.

[etsuri]

TechCrunch Disrupt — Is it worth it?

We exhibited at TechCrunch Disrupt London 2014 this week and after a couple of days we have been looking back to answer the simple question of “was it worth it?”

Attending is not cheap, especially for a small startup on a tight budget. Tickets for Startup Alley Exhibitor Package for two cost us £720 pounds. Adding an additional £750 for flights the cost quickly rises. We were lucky to not have to pay for accommodation.

Comparing to other events, the Dublin Web Summit Alpha Package costs a little under £1200 for three days, with flights a little over £50. We will be attending both and will be writing about it as soon as we can.

What we’ve paid

In our case we took a quick look at what we could get for the amount we’ve paid. Depending on where your developers are located you could almost pay them a month’s salary. You could quite heavily promote your app through advertising on Facebook or Twitter. You could purchase a new computer. All things that are essential for small startups.

The event itself was very well organised. Getting in to set up was quick and easy, very efficient and polite staff, food and drink almost always available and the venue itself was good.

We exhibited on the first day and were fortunate to have a corner table in Startup Alley giving us plenty of breathing space to move around. Others were not so fortunate, being cramped into tight areas with barely any space to move.

Everyone were of course after the same thing — out to sell. All startups and some sponsors as well were very busy promoting themselves, trying to get media attention, feedback and to speak to potential investors and possibly make partnerships with others.

In our case we got very favourable feedback from almost everyone we spoke to and very encouragingly also from those from large news organisations such as Time, Sky, Quartz and Nikkei Publications. We also received interest from some investors (although the general message from VC’s to everyone was come to us later), but more importantly we have begun what is looking to be a very promising win-win partnership with another startup that will not only save us development time but also improve our product immensely. It is, however, difficult to receive any true critical feedback. There is little time and many are keen to see all startups and want to be polite to get users to their own service rather than challenge others exhibiting. It is vital to be very active yourself. Do due diligence on other startups there, be prepared, reach out to others and don’t expect for them to come to you.

Presentations? Not worth it

We cannot speak of the first day keynote presentations as we were unable to see any of them but were able to see them on the second day. These were of relatively poor quality with questions being simple and rather dull. Many in the audience were coding and looked like they had just tried to find a place to sit. For small startups these presentations were irrelevant and did not add any value to attending.

Startup Battlefield finalists were far more interesting with some great pitches and ideas that will undoubtedly have an impact in the future. We were, however, quite disappointed in the simplistic questions asked by the judges and were expecting far more rigorous and challenging interrogation. The winners, Crate, had a great product and idea and will be more than happy with the media attention but a company that has already raised $1.5 million from Sunstone and DFJ Esprit and are looking for another $3–5 million will not be noticing an extra £30,000 in award money. One starts to question the value of Startup Battlefield when the companies pitching are not startups looking to secure their futures but already established companies with strong funding from major funds. This complaint has often been repeated in the past years most noticeable by Michael Arrington who founded TechCrunch.

Entrepreneurs like me who paid to participate asked themselves and each other this question:“Why did I spend money to be here?” Peter Lalonde

http://openera.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/why-i-regret-going-to-techcrunch-disrupt/

Was it worth it?

For us in the end the event has provided very positive beginnings. It remains to be seen how these will develop in the future. Will it be a waste of money for some? Undoubtedly.

[etsuri]

An information vacuum in Ukraine

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported on Thursday 28th August that attacks on journalists have led to a distinct lack of information in eastern Ukraine. According to Aleksi Matsuka, chief editor of Novosti Donbassa “There are no [independent] Ukrainian journalists left in Donetsk.”

Pro-Russia separatists have allegedly targeted and threatened regional reporters and kidnapping them. Matsuka has even experienced this first hand with his car being torched and receiving numerous death threats.

Ukrainian television and radio in Donetsk has now been replaced by Russian broadcasts that now deny accusations of spreading propaganda and comparing the current government as Nazis. Just a few days ago captured Ukrainian soldiers were paraded in the streets of Donetsk with the streets cleaned afterwards – in similar fashion to captured German soldiers paraded in Moscow after WWII.

These attacks have not been done at random. One of the first steps, according to Matsuka, was to “wipe clean the media.”

Separatists see Ukrainian reporters as a threat and do not give them accreditation required from their own recently created ministries. Foreign correspondents have it easier, however they are still watched closely. The Ukrainian authorities have in turn detained journalists, increasing the difficulties of finding accurate information.

Ukrainian authorities have also struggled to deal with these abductions, and “appear not to have a strategy” to deal with such cases. Furthering the information war, Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky has launched Ukraine Today in a clear attempt to counter the influence of Russia Today in the region.

This channel has a clear Ukrainian editorial slant so it remains to be seen what effect this will have – give clearer information or further the use of propaganda. The Institute of Mass Information and Telekritika are both attempting to monitor the issue of partiality; a problem set only to grow as the situation worsens.

The ultimate victim of these actions, as stated by the CPJ, is the public. News vital for those in the conflict zone may not reach those who need it. This includes agreements on humanitarian corridors for refugees or even knowledge on what is happening in the wider context. Similarly persons outside the conflict zone will continually be receiving mixed information and misinformation from both sides with little chance of knowing what is truly going on and limiting their understanding. This is vital for proper international reactions.

As the future of Ukraine continues to look uncertain we can only guess as to how this will affect the situation on the ground. What is certain is that the problem of misinformation, not limited to Ukraine, is one that requires solving.

Read more at:

CPJ http://bit.ly/1nzGHL3

Washington Post http://wapo.st/1B11zPM

RFERL http://bit.ly/1pxYRxI

CJR: http://bit.ly/1wNUBin

Picture by Vladimir Yaitskiy

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kronny/11484852103

[etsuri]

The Verification Handbook

At the International Journalism Festival 2014 in Perugia The Verification Handbook was presented to the attendees. This book is a great new resource for journalists as well as aid responders.The book has been published by the European Journalism Centre and written by 22 verification experts from media outlets and non-profit organisations.

This handbook provides simple step-by-step guidelines in regards to using user-generated content (UGC) during emergencies and. The steps can also be used in an every day newsroom situation for verifying any content that you find and are considering reporting on, and essential for freelancers.

It "prescribes best practice advice on how to verify and use this information provided by the crowd, as well as actionable advice to facilitate disaster preparedness in newsrooms."

When crises occur social media networks are constantly flooded with updates, pictures and videos from persons witnessing the event. This has been seen time and again, especially since the Arab Spring. Reporting the right information can aid relief efforts massively in areas where natural disasters have occurred. Unfortunately sharing some user-generated content can also be very dangerous for the individuals who have participated.

What is covered?

The book is set over 10 chapters covering:

When emergency news breaks

Verification fundamentals: Rules to live by

Verifying user-generated content

Verifying images

Verifying video

Putting the human crowd to work

Adding the computer crowd to the human crowd

Preparing for disaster coverage

Creating a verification process and checklist(s)

Verification tools

The presentation can be watched below where some of the authors of the chapters presented their work and many interesting questions were put forward by the audience.

As social media has become the go to method of sharing and finding new information instant verification is becoming a greater necessity. Often it has been seen that a false, incorrect or misleading image has been posted that has been shared by newsrooms. Sometimes the reasoning behind it is just because others are doing.

This short book is a great read and the more verification that is done by journalists the better.

A big thank you to all presenters and authors as well as the International Journalism Festival!

[etsuri]

Digital safety and journalism

How can digital safety best be taught to journalists?

At the International Journalism Festival Steffen Leidel held a session where he gave his 10 recommendations for digital safety.

Steffen is an award winning journalist with more than 15 years experience in print, radio and television as well as online. Sine 2005 he has worked at the Deutsche Welle Akademie as a trainer, consultant and project manager also responsible for e-learning. Last December he organised an online workshop on Digital Security for Journalists and is responsible for onMedia, offering training tools and information for journalists.

Risk

Risks are often taken by people until something terrible happens or revelations are made. The big scandal story from last year still continuing has been the NSA spy scandal. Many journalists are tapped and are being spied on but many do not know how to protect themselves.

There exists a vast array of tools available easily for anyone to use such as Tor for private browsing and OpenPGP for encrypted emails. It is not, however, about the tools. Even after the NSA scandal many have not changed their habits, and after the recent Heartbleed bug many have not changed their passwords.

In the end it is not the tools we use but the behaviour that we exhibit. Taking the approach of "I have nothing to hide" is not acceptable. One must have a right to privacy. One of the key problems of digital safety is that its breach is a crime without visible victims.

The 10 recommendations

      1. Don't panic!

Even though the key is behaviour and habits, as mentioned, tools that can make you significantly safer do exist. One example is Threema for mobile messaging

      2. It has to pass the Greenwald Test

Famously, when Edward Snowden tried to pass on documents to Glenn Greenwald he had to teach him how to do it safely and to implement all the recommendations. Initially Greenwald resisted his recommendations as too difficult and time consuming but fortunately relented. The tools you use must be easy to use. The easier they are the more likely it is you and others will use them.

      3.Digital security is not a secret science

Digital security is something that we can all learn and teach others.

      4. Teach data awareness. Do not overlook the obvious

It is not only the NSA that is watching. Excluding all other government organisations reading what data they can businesses also access you data regularly. Businesses can be just as interested for user research and/or selling off their data to other companies.The Financial Times recently had an excellent piece presenting how much your personal data is worth to other companies.

The NSA was recently defended last year by Obama by saying that only the metadata is collected and not its content. However, from just the metadata of even a mobile phone you can reveal an incredible amount of information. German politician Malte Spitz did an experiment to see what 6 months worth of metadata from his phone would show. What is revealed is not just when you made calls or sent messages and when but also your exact location at the time it was made.

Be also aware of apps and ask yourself what does this app need or want with my data? There are many that are intentionally malicious.

      5. It's not about tools, it's about understanding concepts.

Again it is not the tools available that are important but the concept of security in its entirety and the concept of its tools. For encryption to work properly encryption must be end to end. This means there is no break in the encryption from you until the person who you want to read your message sees it. There are many tools out there that claim to facilitate encrypted messaging. Many of these, however, open up the message on the way to its recipient. reading and storing the data.

      6. We need more data protection journalism

One of the best ways to increase digital safety is to report more on it. The more people who understand the consequences and impacts of digital safety can induce a stronger reaction from people. There are some excellent reports out there, such as NSA Decoded and Bahrain Watch but it is not enough. In many places such as the UK such stories are not reported on and information must be taken from elsewhere.

      7. Understand the threat

The threats are very real and even so not enough understand its implications. Recently in the Ukraine during the protests people in the area received texts saying: 

Dear subscriber you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance

Unwittingly in Syria Shaun McCallister was arrested and on his laptop and phone were unencrypted details of his dissident contact, Kardokh. Fortunately for his source he fled the country as soon as he heard of his arrest.

For journalists it is essential to have a plan and commit to threat modelling.

Security = Model + Tools + Habits

This involves clarifying for yourself:

"What do I want to keep private?"

"Who wants to know?"

"What can they do?"

Remember the most convenient way is not always the safest.

       8. Stay realistic

Work out real life scenarios. There is no silver bullet to digital safety. Use three tools that work rather than thirty that no one uses. Also ask yourself what does your employer do to protect you?

      9. Integrate security experts into the newsroom

These do not have to IT expert, but possibly even other journalists who are familiar int he field. The important thing is to have someone who is capable and who can teach and guide others in its practice.

      10. Know where to learn

There are lots of different places online and offline where you can learn these things. It always helps to know where they are though.

Always remember, it is "a fundamental right to know what is happening with your data"

A big thank you to Steffen Leidel for his engrossing presentation. The links on the bottom are to the presentation itself that contains even more information. The two on the bottom contain far more resources for learning about digital safety, behaviours and tools that should be followed.

http://lopad.org/uc5TFmIurz

http://akademie.dw.de/digitalsafety/

[etsuri]

Google Masterclass: advanced search and Google trends

Tips & Tricks on getting the most out of Google

The first session to report to you on was held by Nicholas Whitaker from Google for Media team. Before becoming a part of Google, Nicholas produced, directed, edited and shot videos and still images for news, commercials, entertainment and advocacy media.

He guided us how journalists can use Google's search engine to its maximum potential. Many of its features are often overlooked.

"The perfect search engine should be one that understands exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want and need." While Google already does a lot of the hard work behind the scenes, the user can also help refining their searches.

1. Quotation marks

One refinement many are familiar with is adding quotation marks to their searches to ensure that the exact phrase is searched. Without quotation marks Google places an 'and' in between every word. This is helpful when you know exactly what you are looking for, but it will also exclude related terms.

2. Subtraction

General searches can often yield many unwanted results, especially when that topic has been in the news a lot recently. The example given was when searching for Malaysia. At this moment with the missing Flight MH370 many of the search results will give you the latest news on the topic. There is a simple solution to getting rid of these unwanted results.

Searching for Malaysia -MH370 -flight -jet will give you results for Malaysia excluding those keywords. This makes finding the wanted information much easier.

3. Indexed websites

To search through individual websites you can search:

Site:www.journalismfestival.com keynote

This will give you results with any page containing the word keynote inside journalism festival's website

4. Filetypes

If you need to find documents such as pdfs you can easily do this by searching for example: population Perugia Italy filetype:pdf

This will give you all pdf documents on the population of Perugia. This is a great tool to find official documents.

These are all easily found and used in Google's Advance Search as well.

5. Hashtags

With hashtags becoming more widely used with several different websites such as twitter, Facebook and tumblr it may be useful to have one place where you can find current trends.

Google aggregates all these results for you.

6. Google image search

Using image search can be far more powerful than many are aware. Images indexed on Google can be sorted their image rights. This means you can find out which images can be reused.

You can also search by image to see if it has been reposted anywhere else. This can be an essential tool for vetting and verifying content that you find online, especially user generated content.

There is also a Google Advance Search specifically for images.

7. Google trends

Google trends can show you a snapshot what the world is searching for. You are able to embed trending issues onto other websites as well in many different infographic formats. Just remember to source Google trends.

You are able to explore different regions and times to see what is trending where.

8. Google public data

Google's public data library is an extraordinary tool of data sources and data sets. With this tool you can create graphs using various data pulled from many providers such as the IMF and the World Bank. You can also insert your own data to compare it to official ones.

It has also been specially formatted for mobile making it easy and intuitive to use.

Two brilliant online courses on using search as an indispensable tool are also provided entirely for free and are quick and easy to go through.

http://www.google.com/insidesearch/landing/powersearching.html

http://www.powersearchingwithgoogle.com/

A big thank you to Nicholas and Google for a very useful presentation!

[etsuri]

International Journalism Festival 2014

Etsuri is attending the International Journalism Festival 2014! As always it is hosted in Perugia, which is a beautiful hilltop city dating from Etruscan times.

IFJ is a top free festival with 500+ speakers that focuses on journalism and the media all over the world. The sessions range form workshops for journalists on latest methods and techniques to broader issues such as media in Africa and the situation in Syria and elsewhere.

We are also proud to be Gold Donors of the event. Thanks to almost 750 individuals and many companies the event reached its crowdfunding goal in January, without whom the festival would not have been possible.

We will be covering as many sessions as possible and give you the best advice and stories that we find. Several of them can also be seen live and many others are uploaded as the festival proceeds. We encourage you all to watch as many as you can as they are all of the highest quality!

More information can be found at http://www.journalismfestival.com/

[etsuri]

Issues of journalism

Online and mobile news creates many benefits and problems for an entire industry. The advantages are difficult to argue against. People worldwide get instant access to news and events that happen across the globe almost in real time. It is far easier to be informed now than it has ever been.

  Advertising

The current business model is a dying one. Advertising revenue is still important but is steadily declining. This has led to many news organisations fighting for page views and clicks to ensure maximum revenue. This in turn has caused many to write for the sake of getting these views to maximise ad revenue rather than to inform its readers.

There are unfortunately too many online and mobile news websites and apps that rely on sensationalist headlines, shock reporting, lists and gossip to keep their business afloat. This has caused quality journalism to be difficult to find not promoted. From a business perspective if people will more likely read about celebrity gossip that is what you will find. If sensationalised scare stories will get people to view their articles then that is written. These stories provide the greatest ad revenue and as such will be prominently displayed. This has led to alarmists claiming quality is becoming unaffordable.

The CEO of the New York Times Company has even stated that they hope to reduce reliance on advertising and, as reported by Vanity Fair "squeeze its most loyal readers as much as possible to pay for the content they consume." This is while assuring that advertisers will not have any editorial control.

  What can be done?

We believe that this business model is outdated. Advertising cannot and should be relied on to provide all essential revenue. The dangers are that reporting gets done only for the sake of ad revenue rather than informing. Important events may be overlooked instead to promote articles that will definitely get views. 

We are building what we hope to be a solution for this particular issue. We believe in changing the focus of the competition for views to competing for quality. To do this one must be able to not worry about ad revenue at all.

What do you think are prevalent problems in journalism and what can be done about them?

[etsuri]

The story...

Coming soon...

We founded Etsuri after leaving our previous company byus&co. The core focus had shifted too far away from its original purpose, and we were determined to go back to the reason we started working together in the first place. We want to create a platform for journalists where everyone is free to report news accurately, without bias and interference and truthfully. We want our readers to enjoy the positive consequences of such a platform. News should be read in a coherent and organised manner and must be relevant to you.

Now is the time for new companies to experiment as much as they can to find a new model for journalism and news. This must be a model that benefits its writers, its readers and the publisher.  Fortunately this is exactly what is happening with dozens of new media startups big and small. We believe that our model will fulfil these requirements.

  What news startups have you found that interest you? Is there another model that could be successful?

[etsuri]

The first post

Hello!

…and welcome to Etsuri’s company blog! Why read our blog? Here we will be posting any news on our project and the most useful advice and tools we can find for journalists and aspiring journalists, and of course, news about news.

  Read, report and respond

We are a small startup building a new platform for reading and reporting on news. Our approach aims to fundamentally change the relationship between the reader, reporter and the publisher.

  And here are the faces behind the name!

       Robert von Rettig                  Ryutaro Yokoyama                Gigih Iski Prasetyawan

Rob and Ryu are the founders of Etsuri, Gigih is our passionate lead engineer who just joined us last month.

  We encourage comments. We encourage discussion. Any thoughts you have, post them! Any questions you have, go ahead! If you want to contact us directly feel free to send us an email, or take a look at our website.

Enjoy your week!