[View the story "Research Panel: Examining News Innovations " on Storify]

Meredith Artley, the vice president and managing editor of CNN.com, discussed how the media organization was attempting to stretch their brand beyond breaking news.

Artley said CNN is known for breaking news, but they want to build into beats and passions.

"We are trying to stretch the brand into new places," she said.

One example has been Open Story, which they used with the revolution in Egypt. It provides a central space for users to provide photos, see iReports, read comments and watch video from the network. They recently started an Open Story for the aftermath of the earthquake in Japan.

A new tool CNN is testing is video comments. The site would provide a link for you to record video from your laptop or mobile device with a camera. It appears in the comments section with the story. Artley said it would be live this summer, and they may use on the video comments on air once legal issues are worked out.

CNN will also be changing their site this summer to make it less of a "video silo," particularly on the video page, according to Artley. Most video will be in HD. 

Web and mobile stats after Japan earthquake

• 75 million average page views/day
• 15 million video starts
• 1 million app downloads

Vivian Schiller, the ex-CEO of NPR, provide the keynote address at the International Symposium for Online Journalism. 

She started by saying journalism can be an exercise in getting really, really depressed.

- There is a 30% decline in journalism jobs

- It is increasing a polarized job with polarized media.

- Media is losing its ability to control its own destiny because of aggregators.

Thankfully, the industry is seeing signs like newspaper revenue declines that have been sinking at a slower rate.

She provided seven points to remain optimistic.

1. The conditions are finally right to give newspaper walls a fair shake.

- 2007 at nytimes.com, free content absolutist

- Led efforts to end TimesSelect.

- What mattered to advertisers was scale. Unique visitors counts, etc.

- Scale still matters, but brand is back. Users look to brand, and advertisers have come back to basics. New York Times has trained us to pay small amounts of money and it's not a big deal now.

Schiller said she was underwhelmed by Patch and does not consider it journalism.

"...not in the sense that we believe," she said. "It's thesame thing with Everyblock - it's a utility, not a news provider."

2. Local is still up for grabs. Legacy media companies - newspapers, radio - have the people, brands and relationships with communities.

Will they make the investment in down market? Will they partner with nonprofit startups?

3. Twitter is an emerging power as a news gathering vehicle.

Only in recent weeks, has Twitter become a news-gathering and verification engine, Schiller said. 

"Look at Andy Carvin. Working 18-hour days, he has curated the most vibrant news feed on the political risings in Northern Africa on the web," she said. "Go Andy and all of you Andy's out there."

4. Engagement and scale. How do we super-serve our loyal audiences while bringing in new audiences?

Apps are the holy grail of engagement. Quoting a Pew Research study, Schiller said two-thirds use mobile phones for something other than making calls. More and more are getting news from apps.

She cited an NPR study that found 83 percent of people who use the NPR Android app are loyal listeners.

5. With apologies to Chris Anderson, the web is not dead. The web is still the best way to acquire new audiences.

6. Legacy news should be disrupters. 

"The notion that you are the same everywhere is not viable. Every device, every opportunity, we should start from scratch," she said. 

She said CNN is doing exciting and innovative work. Newspapers are playing with different disruptors. She gave the Wall Street Journal's The Daily as an example.

7. Digital natives have come of age. 

"They care about journalism. Journalism in the way that we all care about," she said. 

It speaks volumes to their commitment, she said about the increasing number of young people entering journalism schools. She also noted that many are developers as well. 

"They reinvent the business model," she said.

The panel, The Last Broadcast: Entertainment is Social - What's Next?, provided us a look at what's next in Television and engagement with audiences.

The panel was moderated by Marcelino Ford-Livene of Intel Digital Home Group and featured panelists Brian David Johnson, Gary Wheelhouse and Jeffrey Cole. 

Gary Wheelhouse, who is from Australia, said having to wait a year for a new episode of Lost just isn't logical anymore. People in other countries will stream, download (maybe illegally...).

"Who is going to want to watch Survivor 6 months later? There is a necessity to keep up. I can't speak to anyone on Facebook from the U.S. You ruin it for me!" he said jokingly to the audience.

Cole said television has become our constant companion.

"The first thing we do at the airport if we're stuck is take our cell phone out and call someone, but soon we realize whether or not we have anything to say," he said.

Now people watch TV on their mobile phones, Cole said.

There was lots of discussion on game consoles like PlayStation 3, Wii and XBox that have made attempts to bring video and music to their systems and have succeeded. They also talked about how advertisers and brands can or should be more social through Televison

"Most brands didn't like social media — they liked creating marketing campaigns and being hands off from consumers," according to Cole. "The question brands were asking themselves is do we want to engage with our customers online?"

Cole said that of course they should.

"(Consumers) are going to talk about you whether you are there or now. Brands were kicking and screaming," he said.

Wheelhouse added that he felt Facebook was the new watercooler. 

When it came to news and audience engagement, Cole mentioned how CNN had a Twitter contest of sorts that allowed viewers to pick the story they wanted to see. He didn't think it was a good idea to have audiences pick the hard news stories.

"CNN allowed viewers to send tweet to pick one of three news stories they throught CNN should cover. They're supposed to be the experts. I think it's an abrigation of their responsibility," he said.

The big question in the SXSW Interactive panel "Promiscuity or Private Groups: Mobile Photo Sharing" was where is it all going?

The panel was moderated by Mayank Mehta, co-founder and director of products for Cooliris, and featured Louis Gray of my6sense and Danny Trinh of the photo sharing site Path.

Now that most mobile phones have better cameras, couple with more powerful 3G cellular networks, have made for better and easier mobile photo sharing. Mobile apps like Instagram have seen a rapid increase of users in a short amount of time, but Mehta pointed out that email remains the top photo sharing method.

Will apps take it over?

Gray said a lot of people have talked about email going away for a long time but it hasn't happened.

The key for apps to capitalize in order to overtake sharing through email is emphasizing relationships, according to Trinh. Tringh's application, Path, allows you to share photos with people you know versus broadcasting to the public. 

"Mobile photo sharing will make relationships stronger," Trinh said.

Part of the success for mobile photo sharing are the filters and exclusivity. Instagram, which according to Mehta is pushing 1 million users. It makes people feel like they are better photographers than they are. You take a photo, modify and upload.

"The filter makes your photo look pretty good and makes you feel like a better photographer," Trinh said. 

However, Trinh said he understands why pro photographers may not find the photos as appealing in terms of their artistic value and quality. 

"It's really a means to an end with the filters and tilt shift — to get the someone interested in using the app."

Furthermore, Gray said the success of photo sharing apps is also dependent on whether a person receives feedback they want (and expect), in other words, social validation.

"You post crazy photos and get tons of validation while others don't and they drop off," he said.

Nonetheless, Trinh said it depends on what's more important to you: public social validation or private social validation.

"I feel more engaged sharing with people I know." 

SXSW is upon us and I'm already twitching in excitement. 

OK, it might be all the coffee I've had lately. Or my anxiety. Or my ADD.

I've spent the past few weeks planning for my Core Conversation with Anna Tauzin, so scheduling and planning for anything else fell down to this week. 

I'll probably continue to harass you all about the Core Conversaton until it's over, so sorry in advance (kinda). We have a blog for it, which you should check out, and see us in action Tuesday, March 15 at 11 a.m.

Tools to get you organized

The good thing about being a frazzled procrastinator nowadays are all the helpful apps and websites around to get you organized. 

I've been using SCHED to create my calendar for each day. I think it's safe to say my schedule is set.

I also made sure to download a few apps onto my iPhone for the fest. ReadWriteWeb has a great article on five apps you should download.

Beluga and Hashable look like they will be really helpful. Hurricane Party looks like a party. Let's just hope the wireless networks hold up. AT&T says they will boost the network in anticipation of the SXSW crowds.

Don't forget

So if you are heading out tomorrow to the first day of SXSW, don't forget to pack a few things. This is what I won't leave home without:

Laptop

iPhone

chargers

Flip video camera

power strip

business cards

Noms such as a granola bar and peanut butter sandwich

water bottle (reusable - respect the environment, yo)

chanclas (that's flip flops for your non-Spanish speakers)

a light jacket or sweater

Film and Music

Tiny baby Jesus. There's still film and music to stress about! I'll post about that soon. There will be plenty to watch and see.

Between getting organized for the SXSWi core conversation I'm working on with Anna, redesigning my site and pulling my hair out from doing my taxes, I realized I had not looked up when our panel, Landing Your Next Job Through Unconventional Personal Branding, was actually going to be held. 

Hooray for SXSW - it's been up for a bit now, but here are the deets: http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_IAP7624

Join us for our convo Tuesday, March 15 at 11 a.m. Our hastag for the event is #hireme.

Yesterday, I received great news that the SXSW Interactive panel proposal written alongside friend and colleague Anna Tauzin, who is the web and social media editor at J-Lab, was accepted.

The proposal, titled 'Landing Your Next Job Through Unconventional Personal Branding,' will be featured as a Core Conversation at SXSW, which is a format that allows us to interact at a more personal level with our audience. We hope you can join us and we will spread information on the precise time and date, as schedules are still being constructed.

To say we are excited is an understatement. We can't wait to share our thoughts on this topic. Searching for a job is no easy task, regardless of whether you are a recent college graduate, recently laid off or a veteran in your field looking for a new position. The web has provided us with many outlets to network with potential employers, but standing out from the crowd of job seekers takes some extra initiative.

In the meantime, the process of gathering ideas and solidifying the content of our conversation will be the task at hand. Hope to see you there in March.

Typically, I'm not much for new year's resolutions. I can be pretty fickle (ok, maybe a little impulsive).

I wrote a post a few months ago about goals, and a lot of those have stayed the same. However, some of these goals I'd like to expound upon. Besides, I know I need to get out of the living-in-the-moment mode a bit.

I have divided these up into personal and professional goals.

Personal goals

1. Keep running and stay injury free. Running is how I relieve stress. It energizes me. However, I've been dealing with a nerve injury for a couple of years now. It's been expensive (and painful) to treat, but I finally found a doctor that I feel has put me on the path to real recovery. I haven't felt better and I have a marathon coming up at the end of January. I'm going to kick those 26.2 miles in the butt!

2. Continue to strengthen my relationships with the people I love most. A couple of years ago, I went through a very rough time in my life. I hated myself and who I had become. I stopped appreciating the people that cared about me most.  I made some serious changes. I never want to go back to that place again. I love the life I lead now and all the people who are a part of it.

3. Get out of debt. I had to support myself throughout college. Thankfully, I had a full scholarship as an undergrad, but I had to pay for graduate school on my own. I have a lot of credit card debt and student loans that need to be repaid soon. I live on a budget now and have started to drive down a lot of that credit card debt. Pretty proud of myself for that, so I want to keep it up.

4. Make art. I don't shoot photos or video like I used to. Granted, I would do it for the other gigs I had in the past and I had better equipment. I want to focus on shooting more, but with an eye toward art versus something journalistic.

Professional goals

1. Always make an effort to learn new things and see how I can become better at my job. Since I started working at the Statesman in August, I slowed down on blogging and coding in my spare time. However, now that I feel adjusted, I want to continue to explore different ideas in communication and technology. Sometimes a lot of my understanding of new technology requires me to 'play' with it on my own before I can apply it elsewhere.

2. Build a mobile app. It's always cool to know how the backend of something works by building it yourself. I hope do this at some point in my spare time.

3. Redesign my site with a CMS. Last year, I was introduced to several CMS and now that I understand the front end, I want to know more backend here as well. Now that I FINALLY got my domain back and my site is horribly outdated, it's a good excuse for me to start from scratch.

P.S. Don't ever forget to pay your domain host like I did...it's expensive and time consuming in the end.

It's 9 a.m. Christmas Day.

By this point, I have Christmas No.1 knocked out with my boyfriend Mitchell's family, which is held Christmas Eve. Only two more to go...

After seven years, this sort of Christmas has become a routine. I pack up my car with gifts, food, two hyperactive mini dachshunds and drive from Central Texas to the tiny South Texas town where I grew up, Cuero. I arrive at my mom's, prepare any last minute food, sit down, have a tamale or two with my mom, and head out to meet with Mitchell's family.

His family's gatherings remind me of the ones we used to have as a child, which is why I enjoy spending my Christmas Eve's with them. His grandmother's home is filled with his aunts and uncles, close family friends, little cousins (all boys, mind you), dogs, lots of food, and presents. The boys run around with plastic guns, soccer balls, cans of soda as gift wrap flies around the room where the Christmas tree and gifts reside.

It's a stark contrast from the Christmases with my Mom and Dad, respectively. They are much more low-key. My dad's closest relatives live hundreds and hundreds of miles away in deep south Mexico. Cousins from my mom's side of the family live near, but we usually don't get together. So Christmas No. 2 begins with my mom, sister, her boyfriend, my niece and Mitchell. Christmas No. 3 is spent with my dad and stepmom.

While things have changed since I was a child, I'm starting to appreciate these smaller gatherings more. My parents are getting older and I understand how important it is to spend time with them. Last year, my mom was diagnosed with Stage Four Ovarian Cancer. It was a scary time, but she's fought it with a might. She's doing great and being, well, my mom. Even though she gave Mitch and I an early Christmas present of a new dryer (it's AMAZING), she still gave me the hideous pair of pajamas I've come to expect. It's become amusing now.

I'll humor her and wear the obnoxious pink PJs later...