Future trends become today's reality so fast that Tech Trends in Journalism was a must-see session for us at #ONA15. Amy Webb, futurist and Founder of Webbmedia Group, spelled out the near future as she sees it, complete with show-stoppers like virtual reality and keystroke identification, which can recognize you by your typing—no matter what you are typing. Eye-popping (and slightly scary) stuff, but from the point of view of newsroom transformation, the real meat came when Amy examined the evolution of social media and how tools like Kordiam's task assignment tool can enhance newsroom efficiency.

Leveraging Social Media Tools for Newsroom Workflows

Amy started with Signal from Facebook—a way to listen in on what conversations are trending with a variety of ways to slice and dice the data, including a column showing in real-time what stories have been verified by Storyful. Facebook is also working on Newswire—a way of following in real-time which posts are performing best.

Amy then took a look at the fighter in the other corner—Twitter—and its Curator; a tool for journalists to understand what posts are doing well and going viral. She also considered the forthcoming Project Lightning, which she anticipates being very similar to Snapchat Discover.

What struck Amy most about these was that so much is being integrated into existing social networks rather than third-party services (though she also looked at the work CrowdTangle is doing in monitoring social news).

Predictive Analysis and Social Media

“Existing social networks are trying to be more useful for journalists,” was her conclusion, and what was particularly exciting was her observation that we are going beyond simply seeing what works and starting to use that knowledge to predict what will work.

It isn't just about seeing which stories are going viral—it's also a 'brute force' way of doing predictive analysis on what stories are about to be popular. For example, before people really started talking about some congressmen boycotting the Pope's visit, we could see it was going to be a story as it bubbled up.

Anything that helps journalists better use social media must be a good thing since too often social media users are moving faster than traditional media in spreading news. Webb's point that “we are way past the beginning of this” was well taken. But the best point she made (of many) was when she looked at the implications for social media prediction of stories and concluded that newsrooms need to look at these tools not just for the social media teams but for every single person who is a reporter.

Enhancing Newsroom Workflows with Kordiam

Looking for an editorial management tool to streamline the workflows of your newsroom? Kordiam's task assignment tool can help you manage and coordinate tasks across your team, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and working efficiently. By integrating with social media tools and leveraging predictive analysis, Kordiam can help your newsroom stay ahead of the curve and make better-informed decisions about which stories to pursue.

For an idea of what Kordiam could do for you and your team, read more here.