At this point in its evolution, the technology advantages of open-source over proprietary software for most organisations are well known. They include:

1. Reliability of a continuously reviewed product
2. Flexibility of being able to adapt code to your needs
3. More control over your own technology resources

However, making the business case for an open-source solution is not always straightforward. Software can be considered as a capital expense or an operational expense, and depending on how an organisation does its accounting, that can change how procurement decisions are made. Also, the price tag of any new software comprises one-off costs for the initial purchase and set-up, as well as ongoing costs to keep it running.

Let’s take a look at the components of these costs for a typical newsroom system and how an open-source solution compares to a proprietary one.

Costs of software licences

There are numerous kinds of software licences, which reflect different models of software development on one hand and permissions on the other. For our purposes the key difference between proprietary and open-source software is that proprietary software requires a licence to use it, and the cost of that licence can be high. Often priced by the seat, or number of users, a proprietary system like a CMS can range from €50 per user, per month, to annual fees in the seven-figure range for large enterprises.

By contrast, most free and open-source software (FOSS) does not come with licensing fees to use, no matter how few or many potential seats are involved. This cost savings alone can go a substantial way toward making the business case for an open-source solution. But since it only represents part of the acquisition cost of any new software, it has to be weighed alongside other ongoing costs, which can contribute as much as half of a project’s total price tag.

Installation costs

Even if the software in question is web-based, it still requires certain conditions or prerequisites to run in an organisation’s environment. This includes hardware requirements such as production servers to software dependencies such as an operating system or specific library files.

The cost of setting up the environment and installing proprietary software is usually included in the price (unless there are some customisations or add-on features required by the customer which would put them into a different service category).

For open-source software, installation is a DIY option by default, although consultants or in some cases the developer themselves can perform the installation, integration and configuration for a fee. This can be useful especially if an organisation does not have an in-house IT department or much experience with open-source tools.

Integration costs

Most organisations have a set of existing systems that the new software will need to work with. The advantage of open-source software based on open APIs is that it integrates more readily with legacy systems, but such a task is still better left to the experts — whether that means an external consultant or the vendor itself. In either case, it can be useful to ask for cost estimates from several potential providers.

Configuration costs

Because configuration includes many of the aspects of how the overall environment for software is set up, such as the choice of hardware and operating system, it is sometimes included in the installation cost. However, some specialty software needs to be “tuned” to user needs and organisational context, which can constitute a configuration process in its own right. Sometimes configuration settings can be missing or poorly documented, for open-source as well as commercial software. When in doubt, ask for the configuration process to be spelled out.

Training costs

This is one of the costs that typically gets overlooked in budgeting for new software because the actual work of training comes only after the software is installed. But it’s important to decide how to manage this up front. Both proprietary vendors and consultants offer training for different fees. In the case of an open-source solution, you may be able to find enough documentation produced by the community to put together training with your own resources.

Maintenance costs

Similar to licensing costs, maintenance of open-source projects is nominally free, while costs for proprietary solutions can incur substantial yearly outlays. What free “costs” in the world of open-source is the willingness and ability for an organisation to self-manage its software, not only in the sense of basic maintenance but also of knowing the direction that the business is headed and what features and functions are needed to support that evolution. If that is the case, then open-source can provide a higher degree of flexibility over proprietary solutions, as the closed solutions tend to come with forced upgrades which may not necessarily align with operational needs.

Support costs

Open-source software almost by definition is built by, and around, a community of developers and users. Often there are forums where common issues are raised and solutions are shared among members of the community. In addition to this, paid support options are also available from many open-source software vendors. The advantage, again, is the flexibility for customers to be able to assemble a mix of DIY and paid support options, whereas proprietary vendors may only offer different levels of support services that meet most of the requirements of their target customers.

Doing the math — and getting to yes

Some organisations will also want to estimate the return on an investment (ROI) in new software. But this comes with a caveat. Some newsroom consultants say that ROI is only really useful as a comparative tool, with your current system as the point of reference. Another consideration for ROI is the time horizon; different organisations may expect to see the system start to pay for itself after 18 months, 24 or longer.

Because ROI can be difficult to measure, especially for smaller organisations that may not have the kind of underlying data collected by large enterprises, a more universal measure to consider instead is TCO (total cost of ownership). Here is a handy guide to TCO for software according to the Principles for Digital Development.

However your organisation does its accounting, purchasing enterprise software is a strategic decision that requires leadership buy-in above all else. It’s good if the folks in the C-suite are convinced of the benefits of the solution you propose. But it’s even better if that decision puts their leadership in a positive light. That is a strategic move to ensure your investment will get the care and attention it needs to be viable for the long term.

Want to know more about the TCO of a digital newsroom system like Superdesk? Sign up for a demo to schedule time with one of our experts.

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Making the business case for an open-source CMS was originally published in Sourcefabric on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Started in 2009, FOSSASIA is an organisation devoted to promoting the free software and open-source movements in Asia and around the world. One of its signature activities is organising the FOSSASIA Summit, which will be held online and on site in Singapore this year from 13–21 March. Sourcefabric is proud to be a virtual exhibitor at the conference.

We recently caught up with FOSSASIA co-founder Hong Phuc Dang to learn more about the history of FOSS in Asia and how the open-source mindset can help to solve some of the world’s toughest challenges.

SF: You started FOSSASIA 12 years ago — how have you seen it evolve over time?

HP: We launched the first event in 2009 [in Vietnam] with the idea to bring people from the outside world, to try to introduce the concept and the idea of open source to Southeast Asia. I remember it was 11 speakers coming from overseas and 1400 people coming to the event. After the first conference, we got a lot of support from the community and decided to continue with it every year.

The next turning point came when we decided to move the event to Singapore and use Singapore as a hub. Because there was already support for the free software movement and open source from the local community and also from the government, it was a good strategic choice.

Another turning point I would highlight is the projects that have come out of the event. Eventyay is an entirely open-source platform we are using to run the event that came out of FOSSASIA itself. We are integrating it with other open-source solutions like Big Blue Button and Jitsi [for video conferencing].

There is another project, Pocket Science Lab, that has also come out of our community. Pocket Science Lab is an open source hardware device used for electronic measurements and science experiments [as an extension to Android phones or PCs]. At our event in Cambodia, one teacher from India came to us, looking for a device that would make electronics more interesting for students to learn. He said students in India have very limited access to old machines in the lab. He wanted a tool that students can have access to and could make science experiments themselves. We made a commitment to solve this issue. And after a few years of research and development, FOSSASIA released Pocket Science Lab with the hardware and the software run entirely on open source. Now it has become a product by itself and it is being distributed in Europe, the US and Asia.

In the past few years there has been a lot of change. Open source has become more mainstream and we see many more contributors from Asia — India, China and other places. We also see the younger generation participating actively. Last month we organised an event with UNESCO on bringing tech together with culture where two 11- and 13-year old sisters from Singapore showed how they were using Mozilla Hubs to develop an interactive virtual showcase that helps local artists to earn an income during the Pandemic. There are many youth organizations that promote free and software software in education like BuildingBloCS Singapore or Teckids_eV Germany. I am happy to see more and more young people participating in the community and this is something that we need to continue to foster and invest in. At FOSSASIA, we run coding programs such as http://codeheat.org that teaches students how to code and contribute to existing open source projects.

SF: For us, we see part of the promise of open technologies for the media industry in the collaborative nature of open source. What other aspects of the open model do you think the media industry can learn from?

HP: First off we need to communicate that open source doesn’t mean that you can get it for free. For every project you have to figure out what is the financial model for you to sustain yourself. We also need to consider how to commercialise a product. It’s not easy, but we can use Pocket Science Lab as an example of open source hardware in production, OpnTec, NextCloud or many small and medium-sized companies in the Open Source Business Alliance that are making business with open source.

SF: Your closing talk at FOSSASIA is on using open technologies to solve world problems. Can you give an example of that?

HP: I believe Free and Open Source is not just a way to exchange code freely, it is a collaboration model that sets an example of how people around the world can work together peacefully to solve any problem. We can take a recent example from the pandemic. In Southeast Asia we have 10 countries, and seven of those countries developed their own contact tracing app. How much money is each government investing just to develop a similar application? The way our model works is that people collaborate and promote other open source projects in the ecosystem. Instead of everyone making their own things and going their own way, we should work together.

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FOSSASIA interview with founder Hong Phuc Dang was originally published in Sourcefabric on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Not long after the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, journalism leaders from around the world convened online to chart a way forward. The future of the industry was in peril, and newsrooms needed “big ideas” to drive innovation.

One idea that we can get behind was floated by Jairo Lugo-Ocando, a professor of journalism at Northwestern University in Doha, Qatar. For Lugo-Ocando, the solution to improving efficiencies and building digital capacity is through the wider implementation of open-source software. Lugo-Ocando recently spoke with Sourcefabric on why, in his view, journalism in the Global South needs a donor-led open-source revolution.

You’ve been involved in bringing open-source software to newsrooms for years. Briefly, explain your foray into this field.

I’m very familiar with the open source and free software initiative from my time in Venezuela. In 1995 I founded the first online newspaper in the Andean countries, called Diario del Lago. It was a cooperative of journalists, and, contrary to many of the native digital newsrooms that exist today in Latin America, we didn’t have any international funding. So we depended on advertisers, which was a problem when the previous government brought pressure on the news organisation and we were forced to close.

But the other thing that affected us a lot was that we didn’t have a proper content management system. The few CMSs that were available at that time were very expensive and we couldn’t afford one.

Moving forward a couple of years, I became a lecturer at the University of Stirling in Scotland, and I had a lot of students who came from Africa and Asia who didn’t really have the money to buy packages like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Office. I needed to find open-source tools to help them. So I approached people from Sun Microsystems, and they eventually gave us $35,000 to help develop tools and to train journalists to work with open source. We wanted to train journalism students to work with this software so that when they went into professional organisations, they would be more likely to adopt the software and become advocates.

Now you’re in Doha working with aspiring journalists, but you continue to advocate for greater adoption of open-source software, especially in the Global South, where you’ve called on donors to do more. Explain.

Donors need to understand that their role is not to support journalism per se. Rather, it’s to create capabilities in these countries so people can do journalism. Unfortunately, most donors don’t really understand the importance of this within the context of their donations.

For example, when I put together a research project at my university, I have all these really complex forms that I have to fill out. Key among these forms are the resources. I have to state clearly how I’m going to conduct my research, what libraries I will need to access, even what software I’m going to use. But this doesn’t really happen in the world of media development. When you put a media project proposal together, you’re asked to detail the project and some resources, but most donors don’t focus on the platform itself. I think that’s a big gap that needs to close.

What’s the rationale for closing the gap?

There are a number of reasons. The first is collaboration. Most of the journalism happening in the new native digital space is collaborative, and that requires shared resources. Consider, for example, the Panama Papers. You had journalists in Peru working with journalists in Sweden who were also working with journalists in Florida, in Venezuela, in Zimbabwe, and many other places. With free or cheap open-source tools, it’s possible for every newsroom to participate, regardless of budget. So, it’s not only about making the operations of these organisations sustainable. It’s also about enhancing the operations in themselves, making possible further cooperation between different organisations even when the reporting project is over.

The second is security. We all know that Linux is far less susceptible to cyber attacks and viruses than commercial software.

And third, of course, is cost. It’s not only that open-source software is cheaper or free, but it also allows you to use your computer beyond the natural life of commercial software. Anybody who has bought a PC knows that after a year or so it starts getting slow, largely due to the upgrades that software makers release. But if you’re working with Linux, your computer could be a few decades old and it would still work perfectly.

To be fair, some of the commercial companies have made their software more accessible in the Global South. In certain countries you can buy Microsoft Office for something like $5. The problem is that the monthly salary for journalists is very low. In Venezuela, for example, reporters make about $12 a month. So even $5 for software is too much.

You’ve made the argument. How do we get there?

Well, the media industry in general, with few exceptions, is well known for its ability to shoot itself not in one foot but in both at the same time with a single round.

That said, the main crisis of the media did not start with newspapers in the 1990s and early 2000s, but actually with radio, which started confronting declining ad revenue even earlier (despite continual growth in audience numbers). Faced with shrinking revenues, radio newsrooms in the Global South turned to Audacity, the open-source audio editor. There was this free software that allowed them to manage their content and that’s what they used. Now, everyone knows Audacity.

But if it takes a crisis to inspire software innovation in journalism, then COVID-19 would certainly qualify. And yet, journalism is still slow to embrace the open-source model. Why do you think that is?

For many news organisations, there are three key reasons. A, they are not aware that they have an alternative in open source; they still think they have to buy the software. B, there’s no pushback from donors who are funding smaller newsrooms. Basically nobody thinks about whether there is a cheaper or more accessible option. And C, many newsroom leaders are afraid of a lack of support.

Donors, therefore, have a big responsibility here. When a news organisation applies for funding, and when the proposal is evaluated, there should be provisions to set and assess the incorporation of open-source and free software. That would at least get people thinking about it. Even if the grantee says, ‘No, we’re actually going to work with MS Office because we already have it,’ at least they were pushed to consider the open-source option.

Software developers also have an important role to play. Everybody says that they have good technical support until the first problem happens and people are trying to get hold of them. Therefore, from the programmer’s side, there must be two main priorities: guiding the transition from commercial software to open-source and free software, and ensuring strong support once the software is up and running.

Want more stories from the intersection of open-source software and journalism? Check out the Sourcefabric blog and sign up for our monthly newsletter.

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In Conversation: Why Journalism in the Global South Needs FOSS was originally published in Sourcefabric on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In many parts of rural Africa, community-based radio is the most trusted source of information on everything from farming to family planning. Radio is free, widely available, and builds on the continent’s rich traditions of oral storytelling, which makes it a perfect medium for journalists, NGOs, and government agencies to communicate with their audiences.

Once broadcasts are aired, however, the content is rarely resurfaced. The result: news stories, educational shows, and public service announcements that are essential to life in Africa disappear the moment they are heard. Sourcefabric is working on a project that, once fully funded, will help keep this content alive.

In partnership with Lifeline Energy, a South African-based non-profit that designs and distributes solar-powered and wind-up radios for educational use, we’re developing Radio Voice Bank (RVB), the world’s first open-source, comprehensive, and searchable library of curated audio content specifically for African listeners.

The platform will be built on our Airtime Pro internet radio broadcasting software, and has been conceived as a repository for previously aired radio segments that can be streamed on demand and freely downloaded. The goal is to make radio segments available in local languages for repeated use by African radio stations, educators and individuals.

“Africa is a continent of radio listeners, but at the moment, there is no platform to permanently archive and distribute content in a free, unified, and user-friendly way,” says Kristine Pearson, Lifeline Energy’s CEO. “We’re working with Sourcefabric to change that.”

When a content creator — which could be a journalist, a radio host, or even a communications team at a UN agency — uploads programming to Airtime Pro, tags, keywords, and categories will be applied to help organise the content. We will then use an API to deliver these shows to the RVB website — a visually clean, lightweight platform for users in areas of limited internet connectivity to access low-bandwidth MP3s via phones and other optimised devices.

The RVB website will be designed with users in mind. For instance, local languages will be incorporated to make it easier for people to search for content based on categories or publishers. The platform will also be designed with icons and imagery to assist users who can’t read.

The first phase of the RVB project will focus on listeners in Kenya, where a pilot study will be conducted in collaboration with local researchers. With its 68 languages, high levels of non-literacy in rural communities, a large number of tech-savvy youth, and a proactive community media network, Kenya is an excellent country in which to develop the project. After successful implementation in phase one, RVB will quickly scale to other parts of Africa.

“Since our founding in 2010, one of Sourcefabric’s key goals has been to use our technology to help people access independent news and views wherever they live,” said Sourcefabric Managing Director Sava Tatić. “The Radio Voice Bank project is the epitome of that vision. We look forward to making RVB a reality for people across Africa and around the world.”

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up to the Sourcefabric Newsletter to keep up with our latest news.

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Helping Rural Africa Get More Out of Radio was originally published in Sourcefabric on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Each day Sourcefabric shares on social media a wide range of stories affecting the converging worlds of journalism and technology. If you haven’t had the opportunity, be sure to follow us on Twitter (@Sourcefabric), Facebook (Sourcefabric), YouTube (Sourcefabric), LinkedIn (sourcefabric) and, of course, here on Medium.

Our monthly Top 10 list is based upon the number of impressions each story received on Twitter.

1. What will 2021 bring? @fathmco asked their associates what they see for this year in the news business. They shared their predictions for misinformation and fact checking, audience engagement, direct publishing, the newsroom of the future, and more. https://j.mp/2WzyWvr
2. Press Release: Italian news agency ANSA has completed the rollout of Superdesk across its full editorial operations. It’s the largest deployment of our award-winning, #opensource headless CMS to date. https://j.mp/38b4oFE @Agenzia_Ansa
3. Is Rupert Murdoch a ‘thug and bully’ whose media empire spells ‘terminal trouble for democracies’? @cjwerleman thinks so, and predicts the beginning of the end for Murdoch’s toxic reach. https://j.mp/3pfhtEO via @BylineTimesPod
4. Read Sourcefabric Co-Founder Sava Tatić’s recent op-ed in @ProSyn: ‘Don’t Buy Bezosware’, arguing that modern newsrooms should avoid buying their content management systems from major media companies at all costs and opt for #opensource instead. https://j.mp/38qsKer
5. Newsroom content audits have traditionally been done manually, meaning they can be costly, time-consuming, and potentially dated from the moment results are available. @lenfestlab is building an #opensource tool to take the guessing out of the equation. https://j.mp/3akjpro
6. 2021 predictions: More journalists of colour become newsroom founders, according to @ketchcast. https://j.mp/2WR5IrM via @niemanlab pic.twitter.com/5T3KRB3GYs
7. Covid-19 has had a deep and lasting effect on the world’s economies. @wnip looks at how the pandemic has affected consumer behaviour and impacted the publishing industry. https://j.mp/3mqw5PR by @faisalkalim
8. Interested in starting a community radio station? We’ve made a video and wrote a short blog post about it. See how quick and easy it is using an internet platform like our Airtime Pro + we offer nonprofits a 30% discount on annual plans to get started. https://j.mp/34dJvZ1
9. More than 60 orgs filed a proposal calling on the EU to safeguard journalists, rights defenders and whistleblowers from SLAPP lawsuits. Not a single EU member has yet enacted protections for public watchdogs from this manner of legal abuse. https://j.mp/2JzQbtf via @OCCRP
10. Trust in news has eroded worldwide. @risj_oxford examines what can be done to reverse that trend, and what trade-offs news orgs face when trying to regain the public’s trust. https://j.mp/2VEzUGc

Top 10: What We’ve Been Reading and Sharing, December 2020 was originally published in Sourcefabric on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Each day Sourcefabric shares on social media a wide range of stories affecting the converging worlds of journalism and technology. If you haven’t had the opportunity, be sure to follow us on Twitter (@Sourcefabric), Facebook (Sourcefabric), YouTube (Sourcefabric), LinkedIn (sourcefabric) and, of course, here on Medium.

Our monthly Top 10 list is based upon the number of impressions each story received on Twitter.

1. The help desk at @gijn offers reporters hundreds of guides and tip sheets on everything from tracking ships at sea to #opensource verification. If you don’t find what you need, they are also quick to respond to specific requests for resources. https://j.mp/32j5RYg
2. The latest @risj_oxford report collected data from 165 news organisations across the globe to find out how the pandemic has affected their bottom lines. Among the few winners were smaller, online non-profit newsrooms. https://j.mp/3eJ0uqp. The same survey found that 75% of newsroom executives want to go back to the office less after #covid19 is over, and 48% are in fact planning to reduce office space. https://j.mp/3f7Nv1v
3. Intercontinental investigative journalist teams from Africa, Asia and Europe still have time to apply (by Dec. 14) for @journalismfund’s Money Trail grants to investigate cross-border illicit financial flows, tax abuse, money laundering and corruption.
4. With rampant disinformation campaigns from dark operators on the web now the norm, it’s sometimes hard for journalists to know when they’re being manipulated. @BostonJoan’s Media Manipulation Casebook is a detailed look at all the latest forms of attack. https://j.mp/2GWF7p2
5. Award-winning journalist @ShirishMM explains why audiences are fed up with news and how journalists can re-engage with them. https://j.mp/36bQXnJ via @risj_oxford
6. The latest, great tool from @themarkup is Simple Search, a browser extension that lets you see the ‘traditional’ results of a Google or Bing search, separate from the tech giants’ ‘products’, which take up 40% — 60% of the page on an average search. https://j.mp/2Ha92dx
7. In a recent survey, 67% of journalists in 125 countries identified training on technologies to support remote reporting and publishing as among their most urgent needs. In this interview with Sourcefabric, @ICFJ study co-author Dr. Julie Posetti explains. https://j.mp/3n7A3NM
8. The latest podcast from @risj_oxford features @MeeraSelva1 and @kathyenglish discussing how public editors allow readers to hold news outlets accountable, and how their roles have changed in the digital age. https://j.mp/3nLPOdV
9. Publishers are using a number of different tactics to pique the interest of audiences during the pandemic and are taking extra steps to reduce churn and super-serve their most loyal readers.https://j.mp/2KH3Yi8 by @damianradcliffe via @wnip
10. The @city_bureau’s @d_holli looks at what newsrooms can learn from #MutualAid to integrate into local ecosystems. “A healthy and democratic future demands that the skills journalists possess be distributed among many — not bestowed on a select few." https://j.mp/39fHfnH via @cjr

Top 10: What We’ve Been Reading and Sharing, November 2020 was originally published in Sourcefabric on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

One of the first challenges newcomers to online radio broadcasting face is finding songs to fill out the music programing on their station. Most people start by looking for free music for online radio. And you’ll probably even find search results for royalty-free music. But don’t be fooled. Broadcasting music through online radio is very different from listening to music online. You can’t just go to YouTube or Spotify and play your favourite tracks on your Airtime Pro station.

Why not? The short answer is: Music licensing.

What you need to know about music licensing for your online radio — different options

We won’t go into the full explanation of music royalties and licensing rules here, but the key point to remember is that radio stations must pay a fee to broadcast music. (If you have an Airtime Pro or other internet radio station, this means you.) How much you pay and which licensing agency you need to buy a licence from depends on several factors, including:

• The country where you live
• The countries you are broadcasting to
• The kind of music you want to play
• Whether your online station accepts advertising

Even songs licensed under Creative Commons agreements have specific conditions for use. While songs licensed as CC0 or CC-BY could be considered broadly safe to use, it is best to check with the artist or consult a lawyer before you start playing them on your station.

But don’t despair. There is great music out there waiting to be found. A number of sites offer subscriptions and other kinds of packages that let you broadcast emerging independent artists for an all-in fee that won’t break the bank. We’ve listed some of the top choices below.

Find a licensing package that fits your internet radio station

Bandcamp: Has been around since 2008 and claims to be home to more than 12,000 unsigned bands in all genres. Artists can sell their music here, and even merchandise such as t-shirts and vinyl. Bandcamp’s payouts are favourable to artists. They take 15% of sales (compared to the usual 30% on a service such as iTunes) and a 10% cut on merchandise. The music you buy from Bandcamp artists is subject to a number of use restrictions; see a sample scenario here.

Jamendo: A Luxembourg-based community of music published under Creative Commons licences. It boasts 4 million members and more than 40,000 artists on its platform. You can buy individual licences or subscriptions from Jamendo itself.

Soundcloud: A go-to place for independent bands. It’s easy to find and follow new musicians here, and the site’s recommendation algorithm is a real strong point, guaranteeing that you’ll be notified about emerging acts with just the kind of sounds you’re looking for. Note that you can use Soundcloud to search for “cc0”, “creative commons”, “free music”, “copyright free” etc, but even then each track will have its own copyright info, and many of them won’t be totally free.

Hype Machine: To keep abreast of emerging trends and read the latest reviews of indie bands, Brooklyn-based Hype Machine should be one of your first stops. It impressively aggregates content from hundreds of music sites and independent blogs.. Unlike other music sites, their offering also includes other creative assets, from stock photos to web templates. Their price list is here.

Tribe of Noise hosts more than 34,000 composers, singer songwriters, producers and performing artists from 194 countries. They recently acquired famed New Jersey radio station WFMU’s Free Music Archive, an online repository of music with more than 100,000 recordings. But free music in this case is more like free speech than free beer. ToN is focused on compensating artists for their work; here is an overview of the licences they offer.Finally, don’t discount older sites like Tumblr and Myspace. Both were once popular social networks, and are still lively places where independent bands maintain pages and bloggers write about their latest music discoveries.

Ready to start your own internet radio station? Test our internet radio broadcasting software today with a 7-day free trial, no credit card required.

Why You Need To Learn About Music Licensing Before You Start an Internet Radio Station was originally published in Sourcefabric on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Superdesk Publisher, the “head” designed for publishing with our headless CMS Superdesk, is making a big leap forward. Based on the latest Progressive Web App (PWA) technology, the Publisher newsroom software will soon offer an all-new, mobile-first experience for content with the following features:

• Lightning-fast performance, with little to no loading time even for graphic-heavy websites

• Responsive display for phone, tablet, or any other mobile device

• Offline availability of content when a user is not online or has limited connectivity

• Enhanced discoverability of content, as PWA-based sites are easier to find online, with built-in support for AMP and SEO optimisation out of the box

• The ability to send push notifications and let users add a site to their home screen

The key benefit of PWA technology is that it makes websites indistinguishable from native mobile apps for users — but doesn’t require them to download or install anything.

For publishers, this new rendering option in Superdesk Publisher offers an instant mobile strategy without the need to develop a native mobile app — an effort that eats up an average budget of €50.000 while offering very little return. (Most users spend 80% of their time in just a few of the apps they have already installed on their devices.)

PWA technology complements the existing feature set of Superdesk Publisher to make it an even more flexible, future-proofed newsroom publishing platform.

From the perspective of our tech stack, the main benefit of adding support for Progressive Web Apps is flexibility. With this option, publishers can:

• Use the Twig and Symfony-based templating engine that is the current default in Superdesk Publisher

• Publish via their legacy systems including WordPress and Django

• Co-develop a PWA front end with us based on NextJS and Hasura

At the same time, editors and newsroom managers can still take advantage of the content presentation options already available in Superdesk Publisher. These include manual or automatic generation of content lists and integrated widget support, which keeps content on the front page of a website continually updated and fresh.

Interested in seeing Superdesk Publisher in action? Sign up for a demo here.

A Faster, Better Future for Superdesk Publisher with Progressive Web Apps was originally published in Sourcefabric on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Each day Sourcefabric shares on social media a wide range of stories affecting the converging worlds of journalism and technology. If you haven’t had the opportunity, be sure to follow us on Twitter (@Sourcefabric), Facebook (Sourcefabric), YouTube (Sourcefabric), LinkedIn (sourcefabric) and, of course, here on Medium.

Our monthly Top 10 list is based upon the number of impressions each story received on Twitter.

1. Why did @Facebook finally take down QAnon, ban holocaust denials, and flag Trump for calling his followers his “army”? Probably because of the self-appointed watchdog group led by @carolecadwalla, according to @suehalpernVT. https://j.mp/2IusX73 via @NewYorker
2. The Electronic Frontier Foundation looks at how targeted disinformation campaigns are being used on @Facebook in the run-up to the US presidential election, calling out the platform for not being transparent about these ads. https://j.mp/2JhulKZ by @NaomiGilens @doctorow @EFF
3. Denise Lievesley, the former director of statistics at @UNESCO, leads this recent online @risj_oxford seminar: A Guide to Statistics for Journalists, the Battle Against Misinformation. https://j.mp/34cwsro
4. ICYMI: All of the sessions from @OpenSourceOrg’s first #stateofthesource summit are up and ready for viewing on their YouTube channel: “Now, more than ever, is the time to foster global connections, knowledge exchange and cross-border collaboration.” https://j.mp/370uwns
5. Local and regional newspapers in Europe have learned to scale back their reliance on @Facebook to achieve algorithmic reach, instead using it to strategically promote subscriptions, connect with targeted groups, and reach new audiences. https://j.mp/2Hy7IkA via @risj_oxford
6. Could Algorithmic Editor be a top journo job of the future? Requirements: Comfortable with tech and its possibilities while being aware of its limitations; communicates fluently with data models at the core of machine learning. https://j.mp/35lZTXd @CharlieBeckett @PolisLSE
7. Ignore science at your own peril: @SaraSchurmann urges journalists on every continent to cover the climate seriously, and look at the big picture of new temperature records, stronger hurricanes, droughts, fires, floods, and species going extinct. https://j.mp/34wMf33 via @GIJN
8. What’s the state of journalism in the world’s largest democracy? “Protest and journalism are criminal acts, Parliament is irrelevant, duties supersede rights, and profanity flows from the ordinary”, writes @samar11. https://j.mp/3dwwTjr via @scroll_in
9. Time to double down on fact-checkers: With the US presidential election just days away, newsrooms are bracing themselves for a torrent of misinformation and conspiracy theories. https://j.mp/34Tsinl by @Jamie_Wiseman_via @journalismnews
10. The Journalist Studio from @Google is a suite of tools for journalists powered by AI and machine learning technologies. Their latest free tools include Pinpoint, for managing large data sets, and Common Knowledge Project for charting and visualising data. https://j.mp/3dxGmXm

Top 10: What We’ve Been Reading and Sharing, October 2020 was originally published in Sourcefabric on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Superdesk, the media industry’s leading open-source newsroom software, is better than ever. Today, we rolled out Superdesk 2.0, the biggest update to our headless content management system (CMS) in years. With new features and an improved UI, 2.0 gives users an unparalleled CMS experience, and more power with which to control their own technological destiny.

Among the biggest improvements to Superdesk is upgrades to the editor tool. From 2.0 onward, the latest version of the content editor, the third generation (Editor 3), will be standard with every Superdesk instance, bringing a number of improvements to editorial collaboration. For instance, whether authors and editors are seated across a room from each other or on the other side of an ocean, Editor 3, which is written with Draft.js, makes it easy to tag and notify colleagues, leave comments in a document, and review changes. With enhanced user experience features for the most common publishing actions, the updated editor window also simplifies management of images, embeds, and multimedia files.

Improving newsroom productivity has been a primary objective since launching the first public beta version of Superdesk in late 2016. Version 2.0 continues that trend with the inclusion of efficiency improvements to frequently-used metadata tags, a new user activity widget for editors, and the ability to launch a fresh content window from the blue “Create New” button in the bottom right-hand corner of all workspaces. Previously, creating new content was only possible from select workspaces.

Readers, meanwhile, will benefit from a new annotations feature, giving authors the ability to add explanatory text directly into a published article or post. This feature will help keep readers on the page, reducing bounce rates and increasing opportunities to keep audiences engaged.

Developers will also find reason to celebrate. In addition to the current version of Elasticsearch, Superdesk 2.0 supports the newest version of Eve, the open-source Python REST API framework. Version 2.0 also includes a single sign-on option based on SAML and integration with Microsoft Azure.

Other features and enhancements include:

• The ability to create a customised knowledge database of frequently used terms and definitions. This upgrade aims to improve content consistency and workflow efficiency.
• A Production API to give third-party apps access to content still in production and not yet published. This will allow newsrooms to build mobile apps to streamline reporting and strengthen delivery of content to clients.

We’ve packed a lot into the latest version of our award-winning newsroom software, but that doesn’t mean we’re satisfied. In fact, we are already looking ahead to version 2.1, when we will roll out a new basic video editing tool to make it easy to trim, crop, or adjust video content from within Superdesk, among other improvements. We’ve also got lots more on our development roadmap, including an asset management system, a new Master Desk, and a mobile-friendly version of Superdesk.

What can Superdesk do for you? To schedule a demo, click here.

Introducing Superdesk 2.0 was originally published in Sourcefabric on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.