Cindy Royal

@cindyroyal.bsky.social

Professor at TX State, teaching Web design, coding & digital product concepts. ‘13-‘14 JSK Fellow at Stanford. Live in Austin, love live music. cindyroyal.com

My 2026 prediction was inspired by something I heard from the very first keynote at the @newsproduct.org Summit. I discuss how product teams will lead the way to unlocking the value of AI for media organizations in three areas: agents, archives and vibe coding.

Nieman Lab@niemanlab.org · 8mo ago

@cindyroyal.bsky.social: “Archives can be used to create new value from decades of reporting, becoming a living, dynamic asset rather than an attic of locked-away, hidden gems.” www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/news...

Impressed by the digital products the grad students in my Digital Issues course created this semester. It is not a skills course, but I wanted them to get the feel for being a product manager, while further exploring a digital media issue.

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#SNL50 An impressionable teen when SNL started, I adored Gilda, fell in love w Bill Murray, still laugh at oddball sketches from Martin Short, Norm Macdonald, Mike Myers, Tracy Morgan, Bill Hader, Cecily Strong. Tina Fey is my life coach. Hard to imagine who I’d be without this cultural touchstone.

"The future of news is moving beyond the written word. With AI at its core, it’s conversational, spoken, interactive, responsive, and deeply personal — the very essence of meaningful human communication," predicts @nikitaroy.bsky.social

AI turns news into a conversation

"The future of news is moving beyond the written word. With AI at its core, it's conversational, spoken, interactive, responsive, and deeply personal — the very essence of meaningful human…

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Remembering ten years ago in Sydney at Bondi Beach when Thanksgiving was fish n chips and beer overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It seems like a dream. I hope I can go back someday. 🇦🇺

Thanksgiving at Bondi Beach

In a week, I’ve gone from a handful of @bsky.app followers to almost 1000, due to some lovely starter packs and great old friends getting settled in here. All seemingly real people and legit accounts, no bots or spam. Happy days. Let’s enjoy it while we can 😀

Been watching old SNLs on TBD on YouTubeTV. A 1991 sketch was about Clarence Thomas hearings. Kevin Nealon was Biden. Phil Hartman was Ted Kennedy. Dana Carvey was Strom Thurmond. Even Al Franken was “playing” a senator then. Sad how little has changed in DC, topics/senators/cast/family members🙁 1/3

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I spent all day learning Capacitor to port a simple Vue app into both iOS and Android. Lots of issues with versions, pods, paths. But got both to work! I was not defeated! Not sure I’ll be able to recreate easily on lab computers. Anyone using Vue like another mobile option better?

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Tonight in my DMI Capstone, our guests were DMI grads Anne Cox and Nina Gloria of SXSW. They both have accumulated loads of experience in the few years since they graduated. Great to hear them enthusiastically discuss their roles at SXSW and what it is like to work for such a large-scale event.

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Another AI exercise. I had students in my DMI Capstone course do an exercise in which they created a Lean Canvas for the idea they are researching. After they turned in their own canvases, I showed them GoZigZag.com, a site that uses AI to generate a lean canvas, based on a simple prompt. 1/3

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Students in my graduate Digital Issues class each have a website in which they do weekly posts about the topics and readings, things like Digital Media Theory, Cyberculture, Social Media, Product Management, Online Journalism, AI, etc.