Journalism’s new social frontier

These are interesting times for journalism. Earlier this year Tumblr started hiring serious writers and editors to cover its nearly 70 million blogs. The result is Storyboard, a fascinating collection of features highlighting Tumblr creators and their work. Check out this great post on Tumblr’s online lit magazine, Recommended Reading.

Facebook recently started doing something similar when they hired Dan Fletcher, a Bloomberg reporter, as managing editor. In their case, Fletcher will be working on something closer to LinkedIn Today, which aggregates news tailored to users. LinkedIn Today is run by Dan Roth, Fortune Magazine’s former digital editor. Roth recently helped Fortune launch its own Web app, which features a deep integration with LinkedIn.

According to Facebook, the world’s most popular social network is emerging as an important news destination for 18 to 24 year olds, with as many as 30 per cent of users in that age group turning to Facebook for their news at some point during the week, compared to only 12 per cent who turn to Twitter.

Check out our post from last year on hyper-local journalismPatch.com and the role that online news services are playing as journalism tries to re-define itself online.