The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications will host the “MobileMe&You” conference Oct. 20-22 in the Nebraska Union.

One of the largest gatherings of digital and mobile media experts is bringing notable speakers to campus from organizations such as CNN, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and USA TODAY.

Mobile Me & You is the conference about mobile and emerging media. It educates and engages industry professionals, students, professors and communications staff in the exploration of mobile media best practices and innovative techniques. It’s about everyday people using mobile tools to solve problems and participate in conversations.

This year’s focus is on the technology and ethics of 5G mobile media, as well as topics that include gaming, TikTok at the Wall Street Journal, mobile news gathering at The New York Times, voice assistants, spatial journalism, virtual reality, drones, and tips from CNN.

Speakers also will come from UNL, Syracuse University, University of California, University of Illinois, Northwestern University, University of Missouri, Santa Clara University and San Diego State University.

The Oct. 20 morning features a free Google Tools training session by Nebraska alumnus Mike Reilley and sponsored by Google Lab and the Society for Professional Journalists. Participants will learn about data scraping, visualization, search fundamentals and how to extract real-time and historical stock data from Google Finance. Participants will dig into search and Google Earth tools in this hands-on session. Free registration here.

The afternoon session on Oct. 20 will explore design thinking with participants working on the basic process and methods of audience research and product thinking that help newsrooms translate community information needs into solutions. The session will be led by, Damon Kiesow, University of Missouri Knight Chair in digital editing and producing. Free registration here.

Speaker sessions on Oct. 21-22 include:

• Ethics Guardrails for Mobile Media as 5G Rolls Out: What Are the Questions? — 5G offers 10-times increased speeds and very low latency that may in turn allow newer real-time applications for mobile media and journalism. How might we anticipate ethics concerns and options for consumers and companies?

• Putting the News on TikTok — How can you do journalism on TikTok? This talk will focus on how to create a sustainable strategy for a newsroom and discuss how TikTok is helping us reshape off-platform journalism across platforms.

• Gamification of Everything: How Games Have Influenced the Next Wave of Interactive Experiences — The games industry continues to inspire all forms of media as industries explore new ways to connect with audiences. Ray Soto will share insights into how he applied game design to journalism, leveraging advancements in mobile technologies.

• Storytelling in the Metaverse: How Do Stories Change When Experienced with Others in Shared Virtual Spaces? — This talk is a look at our metaverse past and future, and some of the tools that make it possible.

• Is There a Next Thing for Drones? — Drones went from zero to everywhere very quickly. But lately, it’s been quiet. However, some rule changes might open new doors soon.

• Hand-on Virtual Reality Demonstration

The conference iis funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Register here.

For more information, contact Gary Kebbel at garykebbel@unl.edu.