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With shrinking newsrooms due to increasingly drastic budget cuts and a biting global economic environment, newspapers have been searching for a solution to the age-old problem of profit margins versus quality of product. A relatively new player is marketing a solution to this problem; Daylife this week is launching Daylife Select, a tool that enables newspapers to enhance and expand their content easily and quickly.

This new product launch is the latest chapter in the Daylife success story; its client list reads like a "Who's Who" of the newspaper world, and yet it is a small New York based operation run by a team of just 25, most of whom are technologists.

Back in 2005, a team of news junkies and techies began work on a technological solution to the news industry's increasingly difficult business climate. The team looked at the web and saw the likes of Amazon and EBay racing ahead in the user experience, while news online hadn't changed that much in terms of navigation and fluidity of the whole site. The team, a bunch of "self-confessed frustrated media fans" started building a system that was launched in January 2007. It was clear to them that the demand for news had not declined, but that the product was heading for rocky waters unless it pushed its boundaries.

The Editors Weblog spoke to the CEO of this team of news junkies, Upendra Shardanand, about the new product, his organisation, the technology behind it, and the future of newspapers.

Solution

Shardanand begins his explanation by saying, "Publishers looked at Google and other aggregators getting all this traffic without doing the original reporting, and we are just saying, well, here is the technology, so you can go and do it under your own brand, around your own original content. I do believe that original content is absolutely critical; that is going to be the draw that brings a user back to your service and establishes your brand and so forth, but that can only scale so far; so, do what you do best and link to the rest. This is a different way to think about publishing."











This new product in the ever-expanding stable of services provided by Daylife is being marketed as a solution to help newspapers through the difficult business climate. Using one platform, it enables editors to access content such as photos, YouTube clips or blog postings on any subject they are looking to cover. One of the issues is that newspapers are frequently cash-strapped in terms of IT, so this product lets anybody with just a web browser and a click on the interface launch a content portal. This portal can cover anything from technology companies to Manchester United, and goes so far as to even allow customisation of the site.


Daylife describe itself as the layer between raw content and the news organisation. The system is an Intelligent Content Service, it being a substantial database with the ability to pull together relevant information for any news organisation on any topic. Simply put, if for example, a journalist is writing an article on Barack Obama's health care policies, the Daylife system will rapidly pull together all relevant stories, pictures, video and so forth from a multitude of sources. This database can therefore provide you with all quotes from Obama on healthcare and all photos of him at, for example, a hospital.

Daylife has various agreements with the major content providers, be it AP or Getty Images, but Shardanand reports that the deal that follows with the client is worked out individually depending on the relationship the client has already with AP, for example, the level of content they are looking for and the size of the client's publication.

The Daylife news website, despite it only being a beta product who's sole purpose is to work as a demonstration to potential clients, achieves 3 million hits a month. When the site first launched many reviewers thought it was a straight news site and questioned the lack of RSS Feeds and so forth.

With shrinking newsrooms due to declining revenues, one of the most significant facts about the Daylife web site is that it is run with zero human input. Shardanand informed the Weblog that the team could go on holiday for a month and it would in no way affect the running of the site.

Shardanand further points out that all the clients they have are, "renewing their contracts."

USA Today experience - 600% increase in page views for a blog

All of this sounds highly impressive, but what impact is this product having on its clients? Shardanand cites the work it has done with USA Today; the newspaper had a blogger writing about cruise ships, making it perfect for advertisers such as P&O and other holiday companies, but one blogger can only achieve so much, and the page was thus too small to attract significant advertisers. USA Today talked over these problems with Daylife, and it thereafter delivered tailored content to the publisher. The resulting page was far more comprehensive and resulted in a 600% increase in page views. It's the same blogger working, but with the help of Daylife's tailored service he is now able to increase content and improve layout.

Advanced algorithms

The software that runs this product is produced in-house, it runs on an open source platform with extra work put in by the "team of rocket scientist" for advanced algorithms. Furthermore, as Daylife hosts the portal, newspapers are able to wash their hands of any technological maintenance or responsibility.

With hindsight?

Considering the great leaps that this small company has made in a relatively short period of time, Shardanand is thoughtful about how they got to this point. The only regret is perhaps a desire to speak to publishers earlier to spread the word and have speeded up the process sooner for inputting the system for clients.

The future for Daylife

Looking ahead Shardanand believes that we will see news coming from a more diverse group; Shardanand informs the Weblog that one of its clients is a pet food company in the UK that wanted to set up a blog containing pet news and stories. He expects more of such diversified providers of news and content in the future as it becomes easier to start publishing.

For Daylife itself, Shardanand is content with the direction the company is going in, but hopes to be able to move the technology into foreign languages "at some point in the future." Daylife also just want to keep on "experimenting and trying new things."

Future of newspapers

Despite the fact that Daylife's success is almost directly as a result of the problems that the industry is facing, Shardanand is positive about the future of the industry: "The outlook is bleak in the short term for newspapers, but I am an optimist and I have to believe that the demand for news will always be there from consumers, and at some point in time, once we are through this whole murky phase, there will be a model for publishing that is probably a lot more efficient. A model where the publisher can extend the newsroom staff because all the other staff can be outsourced. I think even though we are seeing newsrooms being slashed today, I think the right model is where editorial is actually a bigger percentage of the staff than it is today because of outsourcing."

"I think the glitz of technology has taken over common sense," says Michelle Ferrier, Daytona Beach News-Journal's columnist and managing editor, in relation to the Twitter reporting done by Rocky Mountain News (RMN) Berny Morson at the funeral of a three-year-old boy killed in an accident. She goes on to say that live reporting from funerals of private individuals shouldn't be allowed.

Reporter, Berny Morson, from the Rocky Mountain News used Twitter to post a live blog on the newspaper's website at the funeral of Marten Kudlis, a three-year-old boy killed in an ice-cream store last week.    

Twitter is a service that allows for the real-time exchange of quick, short messages. Some reporters use the service to send updates to their websites to offer readers blurbs about an event.

In this case, the media blasted the RMN for covering the funeral with Twitter and has called the decision "inappropriate," "misguided" and "tasteless."  Questions have been raised before about when it is appropriate to use Twitter and whether in some cases it is absolutely necessary.

Sources:  Poynter, Colorado Independent, The Standard, journalism.co.uk

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In his blog, Steven Outing discussed the Global Conference on the Individuated Newspaper and the innovative approaches to personalized news that newspapers can adopt to attract more readers.

Key points of the conference included:

-using the available technology to give "individuated" news. This implies having a content management system that can handle personalized editions.
-younger audiences experience individuated media through many platforms including Facebook, iTunes/iPod, mobile phones, etc.
-individuated news is "inevitable" and newspapers have to evolve.

Rocky Mountain News reported that, due to the constraints of print, newspapers have provided people with a broad selection of content that might not appeal to every reader.

"It seems we can turn all the new-found power of the Internet - that so easily empowers people to personalize their news - and generate a whole new type of newspaper with greater relevance and value. Call it the reverse- published newspaper," said Dean Singleton, MediaNews CEO and chairman of the Associated Press board of directors.

Several examples of reverse-publishing have emerged in the US, with varied success, including the Rocky News' YourHub.com or the Chicago Tribune's Triblocal.

According to Rocky Mountain News, readers should participate in the journalistic process by specifying what it is they want to read about. If news organizations are to remain successful, they should look into customizing their content for each individual.

This makes some people worry that a lot of news might become focused on less serious issues like Britney Spears' latest misdemeanour. Journalism professor Vin Crosbie disagreed, because control of the news agenday will always remain divided between professional editors and users.

Source: SteveOuting.com, Rocky Mountain News

See also:

Goole News app for Facebook

Jim Roberts, digital news editor at The New York Times, will speak of the newsroom integration process undergone by the paper of record at the upcoming World Editors Forum, to be held June 1-4 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

He'll describe the last 3 years at the Times, as "it has attempted to make what I consider to be a historic shift in its mission," towards a much more rounded and "almost platform-agnostic" approach.

Roberts isn't one of those online editors who have an instinctive aversion for print, to the contrary - he worked as a print journalist and editor, as well as a National news editor at the Times. Although he resists calling the Times 'print-centric', it's a fact that print still accounts for over 80% of the company's revenues, and that "our main mission still is putting out a print publication," he said.

One key factor in the NYT's integration process was the gradual approach adopted by the newspaper, instead of "a radical shakeup" - similar to the Guardian's approach in that respect.

"There was a change in newsroom culture and it had its rocky moments, I certainly can't minimize that," said Roberts.

But "We haven't ordered anyone to focus on digital journalism to the exclusion of everything else." Instead, "We've encouraged people to think of Web as one of an array of tools and outlets to report the news."

Here are some of the other factors that made the Times' integration approach successful, in Roberts' view:

- The creation of a Continuous News Desk, in 1999, first appealed to foreign correspondents. With the help of staff based in New York, the reporters could publish stories online that could instantly be read by their sources. This established the foundations for print reporters seeking the advantages of online.

- Not having evolved through edicts, but by engaging staff's brains: give the print reporters the necessary tools.

- Teaching journalists that the Web can mean more and better ways to tell stories.

- Two years ago, the Times 'planted' multimedia editors at each news desk. This led to increased print-online collaboration on stories and to successful enterprise-type projects, where the Web content complemented the print articles, and vice versa (see this multimedia project about prisoners that were exonerated by DNA evidence, which complemented ex-prisoner profiles in the print edition).

- Roberts' own print background, thus trusting relationship with the paper's reporters. "One of my chores has been to eliminate the fear aspect of it (writing for the Web)."

- Last but not least, tell reporters that if they don't report online, their competitors will: "If I could point to one thing that has really worked, it is appealing to reporters' competitive instincts."


Roberts will speak in the second session of the World Editors Forum, entitled "Are integrated newsrooms really working?" View other interviews in this preview series by clicking here.

Source: Jim Roberts, Digital News Editor, The New York Times

The Editors Weblog is running a series of exclusive interviews about the future of journalism with top editors at leading newspapers around the world. Here is the latest installment with  Abdul Hamid Ahmad, Editor-in-Chief of Gulf News, based in Dubai.

The list of upcoming interviews will be updated as they are published (click here to view all interviews in this series). Among the other titles that have been asked to participate in these interviews are:

- The New York Times - Jonathan Landman (US)
- Financial Times (UK)
- Guardian (UK)
- Washington Post - Jim Brady (US)
- Globe & Mail - Ed Greenspon (Canada)
- The Times (UK)
- The Economist (UK)
- Gazeta Wyborcza - Jaroslaw Kurski (Poland)
- Le Monde (France)
- Die Welt (Germany)
- The Hindustan Times - Pankaj Paul (India)
- Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
- JoongAng Ilbo (South Korea)
- The Age / Fairfax - Mike van Niekerk (Australia)
- The Nation - Pana Janviroj (Thailand)
- Punch (Nigeria)
- El Tiempo (Colombia)
- Clarin (Argentina)
- Gulf News - Abdul Hamid Ahmad (UAE)

Questions: "News, journalism, newspapers: same past, different futures?"

How long do you think you will define your company as a newspaper company or a print company?

Gulf News cannot be pigeonholed as either a newspaper company or a print company. It is a content provider. This means that it supplies news to print, online, radio or any other required medium. The organization will survive and sustain in this role that is its core functionality. We do have commercial printing facilities but our focus will always be news, irrespective of where it is published.

At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, a panel of futurists claimed that print newspapers wouldn't exist by 2014. To what extent do you agree with this?

I strongly disagree with this point of view. Firstly, more than two thirds of the world doesn't have internet access; it perhaps has some limited access to television, which leaves print or newspaper as the main medium for receiving news. While circulation may be plateauing and in some cases declining in the West, it continues to increase in Asia and Africa for the aforesaid reasons. If internet has to make an impact, there would need to be development in infrastructure, increased investment, better education and other facilities in place. So the decline in Europe and America is compensated by growth in Asia and Africa for newspapers. The year 2014 is very close; I definitely do not see newspapers losing its significance by then.

In journalism's multi-centennial history, do you view the emergence of digital journalism as part of the continuity, or as a complete breakaway with previous forms of journalism?

Digital journalism is part of the continued journey of journalism. When television arrived, people heralded the doom of radio. Today, radio is doing very well and moving from strength to strength. One form of media helps another. Technology has helped journalism evolve and we need to adapt to the changes.

Do you believe in the increasingly active role of the user in the news process, and is it a threat or an opportunity for professional journalists?

Readers or users are the support system of the journalistic process. There wouldn't be any value to our work without them. Nobody can function in isolation. The increasingly active role of the reader/user in the news process is an opportunity not a threat for professional journalists. We should use the chance to educate readers so that the quality of interaction could be more professional. Ultimately there will always be amateurs and professionals in the world; people need to choose who they deal with.

Do you consider the Golden Age of investigative journalism is already past, or just beginning?

The Golden Age of investigative journalism is just beginning. As our world shrinks with increased connectivity and people's access to information increases, they are no longer satisfied with the superficial. They want more... they want to know in depth. They want to know what lies beneath the surface.

Can journalism survive newspapers?

Journalism is not dependent on newspapers for its survival. It existed from the time man learnt to communicate through images, words and sounds. Its root or seed lies in speech. When a tribesman climbed atop a rocky outcrop to call out to his people - that was journalism, he was giving them information. Among ancient Arab civilizations, poets functioned as journalists. They conveyed political messages, news, propaganda and other information through poetry. So journalism has existed for a while. Today it has found a home in print, online, television and radio. In the future it will find other means, but survive it will. Journalism will exist as long as man can talk.


Stay tuned for the next week's interviews, which will include The New York Times and the Financial Times.

Several papers have reported on the death of US Army major Andrew Olmsted who blogged from Iraq for the Rocky Mountain News. According to the paper’s editor, Olmsted’s work illustrated how bloggers can produce content that couldn’t be achieved by journalists.

The Chicago Tribune today launched Triblocal.com, allowing readers in far western and northern suburbs to post stories and photos and write blogs in a mostly unedited forum. The Tribune will also publish the best content from the site in a weekly tabloid.

How big is your redesign? Tabloid, 48-inch Broadsheet or Berliner?

The Visual Editors are examining and debating the new designs from the tabloid-size Rocky Mountain News, the narrower Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the award-winning Berliner revamp of Belgium's De Morgen.

• REDESIGN: Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee
• REDESIGN: Rocky Mountain News, Denver
• EXHIBIT: De Morgen's award-winning redesign

LIVE CHAT: Thursday with De Morgen's designer - Martin Huisman.

Scripps, publisher of newspapers in 18 markets including the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, expects revenue to rise by single digit growth next year.

In the age of integrated newsrooms and convergence, the idea that a paper can scoop itself by posting a breaking story on the Internet is becoming outdated.  Donna Shaw of the American Journalism Review wonders if there are any exceptions.

YourHub.com, a grassroots journalism site that allows its users to connect with people in their neighborhood, has produced a print companion that many newspapers are including in their regular editions.

To cut costs and save up to $10 million a year, The New York Times will move all daily stock and bond price listings online, beginning April 4. Although the Sunday edition will remain to be published with full financial tables, two page summary tables and new online functions will replace the normal 6 page section on Tuesday through Saturday.