you know what? You know things. We had so many questions in the last two weeks from members of our community and I'm sure, someone of you already has an answer. A little selection:

• Are publications hiring teams for investigative reporting or do they rely on freelancers?
• Can you recommend any gimbal for iPhone?
• Which feature do you miss when using Twitter lists?
• Do you know journalistic Youtubers?
• How do you make money in VR? (Haha, just kidding. Nobody makes money in VR yet. Or... do you?!)

Rock on & read you in Slack!
Henrik

ROCKS REPORT

 #audience-development 

• This week there was a brief discussion around Quartz’s US election Slack community and the quality of the conversation, from those who did join the initiative briefly, which at its peak had 1,012 people participating, according to a Nieman Lab article. Quartz created a Slack to help readers around the world follow the election
• What we read: What I learned from seven years as the Guardian’s audience editor - by Chris Moran.

Channel Rockstar: @madalina.ciobanu. Check out the channel for more or contact Madalina for questions.

 #audio 

• What was your favorite piece of audio during the last weeks? A podcast, an audio drama, a journalistic piece? Would love if you share a link (and maybe why it is worth listening) in the audio channel.

Channel Rockstar: @kollege. Check out the channel for more or contact Marc for questions.

 #facebook 

• As @johannesklingebiel find out, there is a Chrome extension, which highlights bullshit news sources on facebook and it was built in an hour! After he posted this, there was an interesting discussion who is or isn’t going to use it, but why people will not use it. There was no clear answer.
• But @linatimm found a collaborative Doc on ideas how you would go against fake news if you were Facebook.
• In other news, those annoying reaction-voting-videos on Facebook Live are apparently against FB policy. But guess what? You can still stumble upon them in your newsfeed. Have some insights on the matter? Let us know!

Channel Rockstar: @davidtvrdon. Check out the channel for more or contact David for questions.

 #investigative 

 #messaging_bots 

• CNN shared some insights of the last six months of its first moves in the messaging space. They have some really big follower numbers on platforms like Line and Kik and will try to improve there. The question here is clearly how much of these follower numbers are actual users engaging with their content.
• Also a German regional newspaper launched its "Stimme" bot on Facebook messenger as @dahilzen pointed out. Right after the start it already had 500 users who sent 15.000 messages. Not that bad for one of the smaller publishers. You can give it a try here. And as always your feedback in the channel is very welcome!

 #mobile-reporting 

• @flight_1 wonders if we have any recommendations for an iPhone 6 gimbal, and a raincase. @dorien_luyckx recommended the DJI gimbal, but @flight_1 ultimately chose to try out the Zhiyan gimbal. Do you have any other suggestions? Let us know!

• Also, @martinoswald tested the telepromter app Video Telepromter Premium and shared his thoughts about it. ”I’m glad to see that the creators thought of the camera-facing issue”, @tilman commented.

• Have you tried out something similar, or completely different, to aid you in your mobile reporting? Share your thoughts with us!

Channel Rockstar: @henrik.stahl. Check out the channel for more or contact Henrik for questions.

 #startups 

• The second round of the Google DNI (Digital News Initiative) got announced. You can find the list of successful applicants and projects here. The channel discussed some of the projects, such as eldario.es, Di Digital, and two by DW Innovation.  

Channel Rockstar: @jankoenig. Check out the channel for more or contact Jan for questions.

 #storytelling 

• We had a heated yet friendly discussion about the real time reactions in Facebook live broadcasts. Some were curious and some were quite positive even, while others hate the very concept itself. ”I really hate these streams. It is a perversion of the live video. I hope Facebook will do something about it very soon”, said @martinhoffman. And his prayers were soon heard by Mark Almighty: he banned them. ;’(

• @snazmi shared NY Time’s storytelling piece What I Saw in Syria, and wondered how they built it. Channel rockstar @henrik.stahl suggests it looks a lot like Bootstrap, and that most of it could be achieved with HTML/CSS and JavaScript. @mirkolorenz recommended Pageflow, since ”it does much of what the NYT did in the the story about Syria”. He also submitted a list of storytelling tools, to which @kolja.langnese added his tool ScribbleLive.

• @martinhoffman shared Click click click as one of the best web projects he has seen in a while. ”It really helps users to get a sense of what data websites are tracking. Brilliant – although it is not “journalistic” in a traditional way,” he explains.

Channel Rockstar: @henrik.stahl. Check out the channel for more or contact Henrik for questions.

 #tooltime 

• There was a brief exchange of notes on Eli Pariser’s Google Doc on how to battle Fake News, started by Jan Eggers.

• We added the storytelling tools named by Mirko Lorenz from the #storytelling channel - plus an extra: Prieconomics. Anyone up for an in-depth review?

• Plus Henrik mentioned a new tool called viooly for finding “flaws in persuasiveness". But we are still waiting for feedback on whether it’s worth using. Anyone?

Channel Rockstar: @tilman. Check out the channel for more or contact Tilman for questions.

 #twitter 

• The resignation of Twitter COO Adam Bain had been posted by @henrik.stahl.
• @jankoenig asked for input for his current work on a prototype for a site that makes monitoring twitter lists easier and independent from access to TweetDeck. @linatimm suggested an alert for the ten most interaction receiving tweets within a list. @tilman suggested to get in contact with Storyful, as they already have an in-house tool for monitoring twitter lists for certain words and patterns.

Channel Rockstar: @luziatschirky. Check out the channel for more or contact Luzia for questions.

 #video 

• @shanedevane wonders if anyone follows any good journalists onYoutube, i.e. ”a journalist who does short weekly/daily updates summarizing news.” If you do, please let him know!
• @farahcolette shared NY Times’s ‘There’s No Law on the Amazon’: River Pirates Terrorize Ships by Night.

Channel Rockstar: @henrik.stahl. Check out the channel for more or contact Henrik for questions.

 #vr-ar 

• @farahcolette brought in the question on how to make money out of VR. @henrik.stahl thinks it should be beneficial for small brands in niche markets. Right now, the market is still pretty young, so we’ll have to wait and see who will be able to monetize. Just a few days ago, VRideo, who claimed to become the Youtube of VR, had to admit that they failed.
• Besides, @henrik.stahl had a few nice reads to share on the Snapchat Spectacles (which are kind of AR goggles) and on the benefits and possible opportunities of VR for artists and athletes.

Channel Rockstar: @flight_1. Check out the channel for more or contact Susanne for questions.

 GIF of the week 

Carefully selected by @textautomat.