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Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Michael Brito (Edelman Digital), and Tim Devane (bitly). Register now.

The Online News Association, an organization dedicated to journalism innovation online, is currently accepting applications for their 2011 MJ Bear Fellowship Program for early-career digital journalists. The fellowship is named in honor of ONA founding board member Mary Jane “MJ” Bear, whose career included roles at Microsoft’s MSN portals, MSN International, NPR, and American University.

According to ONA, the MJ Bear Fellowships will help identify and celebrate young digital journalists working independently or for a company or organization who have demonstrated that they deserve support for their efforts and/or vision, either through professional experimentation, research, or other projects. This is the inaugural year for the fellowships, and the search committee will select three journalists (two in the US or Canada or one internationally). Selected fellows will receive a personal ONA mentor for six months, a full year’s membership with ONA, and registration, travel, accomodations and recognition at the 2011 Online News Association Conference & Awards Banquet (ONA11) in Boston, Sept. 22-24.

Eligible journalists must be age 23-30 (as of Sept. 22, 2011), fluent in English, and must not be full-time students. The deadline to apply for the MJ Bear Fellowship is Monday, May 30, 2011, 11:59 p.m. ET. For more information about the MJ Bear Fellowships, please visit the Fellowship’s website.

Fellows will be announced in July 2011.

As any audiophile will tell you, good audio starts with a good pair of headphones. If you want your headphones to look as good as they sound, check out some of the cool models below.

 

Swarovski DJ Headphones

These Swarovski crystal-studded Audio Technica headphones will make both your audio and you shine. At £1799.99 (about $2,900 USD) they may be pricey, but at least they come with free delivery.

 

Philips O’Neill Stretch Headphones

These cool headphones also come with some cool features — a tangle-proof cord, a stretch headband, and soft ear cushions — and for made for those on the go.

 

Skullcandy Roc Nation Aviator

Add a touch of class to your audio experience with these headphones that include suede and leather lining and gold accents, in addition to some powerful sound.

 

Miles Davis In-Ear Headphones

The spirit of legendary jazz musician Miles Davis are invoked in these in-ear headphones specially made for listening to jazz music.

 

Crochet Bow Headphones

These handmade, crocheted headphones look both cute and comfortable. While there are no guarantees on the audio quality, at least you’ll look pretty sweet.

 

Star Wars Headphones

R2D2, Boba Fett, Darth Vader, and other Star Wars characters and iconography are emblazoned on these Coloud headphones that include a built-in microphone/remote.

 

9mm Bullet Headphones

Who shot ya? You’ll be number one with a bullet with these in-ear headphones styled after some heavy-duty ammunition.

Traveling just got a bit more awesome thanks to new technology and tools.

Foursquare and Gowalla have made a big splash when it comes to location-based information and Yelp has revolutionized real-life travel with its online and mobile offerings, but there is even more innovation on the horizon when it comes to travel and journalism. Here are some of the latest offerings that are making the world just a bit smaller.

When it comes to travel do you have Italian tastes but a Branson budget? Thanks to interactive panoramas you can visit exotic locales around the world without leaving your home or office. For example, check out this 360° view of London or this immersive interactive of the Sistine Chapel.

Creating interactive panoramas used to mean trotting out pricey equipment, but now you can create with them with the internal controls built into newer DSLR cameras or using photo stitching software. You can also use mobile apps like the recently released 360 Panorama, available from the iTunes store for 99 cents.

If you’re more interested in fine art than the locales that contain them, you can view artwork up close and personal via similar technology. Halta Definizione allows you to view famous works like DaVinci’s The Last Supper or Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus in an interactive environment that allows you to zoom in to the tiniest detail.

A similar effect can be created using tools like Zoom.it which lets anybody embed high-resolution images that have similar zoom and pan controls.

Reinventing the travel experience isn’t limited to fine art: a new crop of apps and websites let you view the history all around you. The Museum of London’s Streetmuseum app pins historic photos onto the real life locations where they were taken. The app uses augmented reality to layer the photos on top of the image seen through the iPhone camera.

Historypin is taking a similar approach by inviting users to add historic photos to an interactive Google map. The result is almost 30,000 photos and stories that can be browsed by anyone.

Slate proved back in 2005 that podcasts could be much more than audio news stories with its Unauthorized Audio Tours of New York City museums. Instead of listening to the prepackaged audio tour provided by many museums, you can instead listen to culture critic Lee Siegel describe and comment on the museum’s offerings. The idea is still relatively untapped among newsrooms, despite its incredible simplicity.

A more recent trend among museums, tour guides, and other non-journalism outfits is to produce their own mobile apps that act as an official guide to a single or various points of interest. The Museum of Natural History in New York, for example, offers an app that includes GPS tracking, detailed information on exhibits, and bookmarking features.

If the various predictions are correct (and they are), we will not only see a growth in mobile applied to journalism, but also travel journalism in particular.

If you’re looking for additional ways to make your travel plans fun, easier, or more interesting, check out this list of ten smartphone travel apps.

by Ethan Klapper

The Online News Association’s 2010 Conference will be held in Washington, D.C., at the end of next week. Here are some design and multimedia workshops that you should not miss.

Photography Field Trip

When: Oct. 28 (Thursday), 8:45 a.m.-2:00 p.m.

This workshop will teach participants some photo-journalistic techniques and best practices. Using the nation’s capital as a classroom, the goal is for participants to have shot and told at least one photo story by the end of this workshop.

The workshop will be taught by Kate Gardiner and Grant Slater. Participants must bring their own equipment.

As this is a pre-conference workshop, the event costs an additional $50 for ONA members and $60 for non-members. You can register here.

Video Field Trip

When: Oct. 28 (Thursday), 9:45 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

This workshop is similar to the photo workshop, except it will teach video best practices, as well as shooting and editing techniques. The goal is for participants to have a completed video piece by the end of the day.

The workshop will be taught by Jon Vidar. Participants must bring their own equipment.

Another pre-conference workshop, this event costs ONA members an additional $100 and non-members an additional $150. The price is higher because it is considered a full-day workshop. You can register here.

Audio Field Trip

When: Oct. 28 (Thursday), 10:45 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

This workshop is an opportunity to learn audio techniques from the pros at NPR. Participants will learn the best ways to collect and edit audio, using the streets of D.C. as a lab. The goal is for everyone to have a recorded segment by the end of the day.

NPR producer Elaine Heinzman will teach the workshop. All equipment will be provided.

The fee for this pre-conference workshop is $50 for ONA members and $60 for non-members. You can register here.

Web Design Trends

When: Oct. 28 (Thursday), 2:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.
This workshop will focus on HTML5 and CSS3, which are the emerging languages used in Web design. The workshop will also cover Web fonts.

The workshop will be taught by Samantha Warren, senior designer at Phase2 Technology and Jackson Wilkinson, the user experience lead for Posterous.

This pre-conference workshop costs $50 for ONA members and $60 for non-members. You can register here.

The Next Revolution for Web Design

When: Oct. 29 (Friday), 2:15 p.m.-3:15 p.m.

This session will feature the legendary designer Roger Black of the eponymous Roger Black Studio and Filip Fortes of Treesaver. The two will discuss where Web design is now, and where it is headed.

Seven Deadly Sins of Data Visualization

When: Oct. 30 (Saturday), 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Hannah Fairfield of The Washington Post, Juan Thomassie of USA Today and Geoff McGhee of Stanford University will discuss data visualization techniques and the ins and outs of infographics.

Tips and Tricks for Shooting Video with Your DSLR

When: Oct. 30 (Saturday), 2:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.

The latest DSLR cameras feature the ability to record movies at near-motion picture quality. Kurt Lancaster of Northern Arizona University, filmmaker Travis Fox, filmmaker Danfung Dennis and Rii Schroer of the Daily Sunday Telegraph and The Times will discuss best practices for the latest must-have gadget for moviemakers.

Can’t make it to D.C.?

Greg Linch and a couple of dedicated volunteers will livestream the sessions, except pre-conference workshops, on the conference website.

My colleague Lauren Rabaino, also a livestreamer, will be posting updates and highlights during the conference right here on 10,000 Words (she’s also responsible for the awesome icons in this post). I’ll be at the conference too, as will 10,000 Words founder Mark S. Luckie, so be sure to say hello!

UPDATE: A reader has informed me I somehow I missed a session — with some great speakers, too.

Coders are from Mars, Designers are from Venus

When: Oct. 29 (Friday), 3:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m.

NPR’s David Wright and The New York Times’ Tyson Evans will discuss the marriage of coding and design.

Fun fact: Wright designed the ONA10 website.