Going Mobile

It's weird when I read articles about news organizations reaching out to an audience that gets its daily news from Blackberries and other mobile devices, mainly because my cell phone doesn't even let me take photos, let alone access the Internet.

I've been covering NPR.org for my individual blog, and the other day I ran across this post on Inside NPR.org Blog. To summarize, NPR has launched a new Web site with content specifically designed for mobile phone users, and now NPR fans will have an easier time accessing stories and audio.

I found a similar story on Poynter Online that addresses the issue from an industry-wide perspective. In a blog post titled "How News Organizations Can Create a Mobile-First Strategy," Steve Puttry urges media groups to focus on metadata, "data about data," among other things. His emphasis on metadata intrigued me because I think this is the meat of a lot of online journalism. With traditional media, it was all about whittling down the story to fit into the newspaper. Now, with multimedia packages, data that doesn't make it into the text story can still be incorporated into slideshows, quizzes, interactive maps and more.

Classmates, do you get news updates on your phone? I'm curious if this is more of a trend for the older, professional population...