Guest Speaker: Mark Briggs

Mark Briggs was nice enough to take time off and speak to our class on October 19th. He is a journalist and wrote the book, Journalism 2.0, which is about digital literacy. He runs a business and co-founded a software called Serra Media. It was interesting to have an author of a book, that was related to our class, speak to us. During our previous class, we talked about online newspapers and how it might change the future of physical newspapers and it was cool to have a person who is professional in that topic (he DID right a book about digital literacy after all) talk about it.

Briggs' talked about how his company used Serra Media and invested in an online shopping blog called Bargain Babe. This shopping blog allows people to shop for products with the best deals around their local area. It's very useful for those who want to get the best bang for their buck (which is pretty much everyone). He explained how his company used a social mapping platform that allowed newspapers to construct a website based off of the local news. Followed by that, Briggs believed that there would be a major transformation in regards to physical newspapers and magazines in the future. He showed us sites related to newspapers and magazines and how some of them required a "payment" to view certain categories. All in all, it was a good presentation and it will be interesting to see how newspaper websites will turn out in the future.