Editors Weblog: Search Results

Newspaper liveblogs local council meetings

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 9, 2010 at 12:12 PM

A newspaper in Manchester has been using various multimedia tools to liveblog council meetings from across the Greater Manchester Area, Press Gazette reports.

Meetings of the local authorities are attended by a reporter from the Manchester Evening News (MEN) or one of its sister weekly publications. Reporters then use Twitter to file updates minute-by-minute. Their updates are then streamed on MEN websites using CoverItLive technology, which allows liveblogging and other forms of real-time updating.

The MEN has so far used this to report on meetings of the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities and the Greater Manchester Police Authority. The newspaper wants to extend the service so that it can cover every full meeting held by ten local authorities across Greater Manchester.

UK: Council newspaper costs revealed

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 4, 2010 at 3:22 PM

There's more fuel for the debate over council-run newspapers in the UK today, with one local newspaper revealing that its council-supported rival costs taxpayers almost £28,000 a month.

In the town of Salford, near Manchester, the council magazine Life in Salford competes with newspapers the Salford Star and Salford Advertiser. The Salford Star filed a freedom of information request to determine the cost of producing the council magazine. It determined that the council spends £27,797 per month, or an average of £333,564 per year.

By contrast, outside advertising income for the paper totaled just over £19,000 for eight issues.

Local newspaper Lakeland Echo closes print edition

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 1, 2010 at 12:36 PM

A weekly newspaper in the British region of Cumbria has closed its print edition after 30 years in publication, Hold the Front Page reports.

The Lakeland Echo closed at the end of the last year. Its website will continue to operate and will feature news from north Lancashire and the Lake District.

There were no redundancies as it was produced out of the same office as sister publications The Visitor and Lancaster and Morecambe Reporter.

Guardian Local bloggers announced

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 29, 2010 at 11:20 AM

The Guardian has appointed three bloggers to its new experimental Guardian Local initiative.

Tom Allan, Hannah Waldram and John Baron have been appointed to cover the cities of Edinburgh, Cardiff and Leeds respectively. They will take on the position of 'beatbloggers', that is, bloggers who stick to a well-defined beat or coverage area.

Scotland: new online newspaper launches

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 25, 2010 at 11:35 AM

A new web-only daily newspaper has launched in Scotland, The Guardian reports, after being expected for some weeks.

Called the Caledonian Mercury, the paper takes its name from one of Scotland's first news journals. It is edited and largely written by former staff from The Scotsman who departed after deep budget cuts at the paper. They will work as freelancers, and will be paid partly according to the "value" of their copy to readers and advertisers. How this will work is not yet clear.

UK government to investigate local council papers?

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 21, 2010 at 12:54 PM

The UK government may ask the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to consider the impact of local council newspapers on local commercial newspaper publishers, Print Week and This is Local London report. Or it may not, media commentator Roy Greenslade points out.

Members of parliament from the three main parties last week called for council papers to be culled. Local newspapers have long protested that council papers take away from their falling market share.

Overview of how newspapers are using sports to increase revenue

Posted by Emma Heald on January 14, 2010 at 8:55 PM

At the WAN-IFRA conference on how to optimise sports revenues, Stanislas Sabatier, a senior consultant at SapienS&Sapide gave an overview of ways in which newspapers around the world have used sports sections to increase readership and revenue.

He began by describing two websites which he thinks could inspire newspapers. ESPN has been launching local sites in the US - directly in competition with general local newspapers. The first was in April in Chicago, and the company has moved through major US cities, planning to launch in spring in New York, and it intends to come to the UK soon. These launches have been a great success for ESPN - the local audience in Chicago is higher than that of newspapers which were already there. Clearly the market wasn't already saturated, said Sabatier, it was an opportunity that local newspapers missed.

Local newspapers still number one for news

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 11, 2010 at 12:46 PM

More local news comes from newspapers and their websites than from television, radio or online-only news sources, ABC News reports.

A study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism looked at one week of local news reporting across 53 media outlets in Baltimore during July last year. It found that for six major stories, 61% of original reporting or new information came from newspapers and their websites. By contrast, 28% came from local television stations and their websites, 7% for radio stations and 4% for online-only publications.

Trinity Mirror rings in New Year with number of changes to west London weeklies

Posted by Helena Humphrey on January 7, 2010 at 5:44 PM

Trinity Mirror has clearly decided that the new year is the right time for a shake- up, making significant changes to its west London titles: As of the 15th of January, weekly Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle will no longer carry its 60p price tag and The London Informer is set to shut up shop altogether. As a result, circulation of the Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle, which currently stands at 1,257, will increase to a considerable 72,000.

Trinity Mirror employees can breathe a sigh or relief, as the publisher has underlined that the restructuring of its operations will not result in job cuts.

Hyperlocal news to hit the Netherlands

Posted by Emma Heald on January 6, 2010 at 4:39 PM

The idea of providing news on a hyperlocal level has attracted much attention over the past year as news outlets look at how to tackle the ubiquity of free online news and try to find something that they can offer that is unique. In parts of the US, hyperlocal outfits are now plentiful, both start-ups and those run by traditional news organisations. In Europe, growth has been slower, but notable projects include Futuroom/Nase adresa in the Czech Republic (disclosure: WEF has been involved in the project as a consultant) and moves by various UK publishers to expand their offerings on a very local level.

And now it appears that the Netherlands is to see an attempt to integrate hyperlocal news more deeply into the news landscape. Bart Brouwers, former editor-in-chief of Dutch tabloid Sp!ts, recently made the decision to move away from print journalism after 25 years and start an online-only network of hyperlocal news outlets. The Editors Weblog spoke to Brouwers to find out more about his plans.

Brouwers himself made the decision to move into the hyperlocal field, and was prepared to do this alone, but his employer Telegraaf Media Groep decided to take on the project and appointed Brouwers to the newly-created position of managing editor of a digital network of hyperlocal news and information platforms. He hopes that his network can spread throughout the Netherlands.

Hyperlocal news is the future, believes Brouwers, because despite newspapers' problems with subscribers and advertisers, there is still a huge public need for information and people have a desire to inform others and thinks that "could be done in the best way on a very local level." It is on this level that people both need specific information, and have information that they can share with others in the community.

The idea for the network would be that it would ideally incorporate existing local bloggers and user interactivity would play a major role. One of the principles which Brouwers is working under is that an article is not finished when a journalist presses the publish button; rather, the process is just starting. "Every journalist must be aware that there will always be more knowledge out there than he could have found on his own, it's just a matter of finding the right people." So Brouwers wants to create some kind of system whereby people add to what has been provided by the journalists. The network is as yet unnamed, but Brouwers hopes to incorporate this idea of "not finished yet" into its name.

Brouwers feels that a hyperlocal network has the potential to make money from highly targeted advertising. Paid content is a possibility, but it would not be the basis of the network's revenue stream: "maybe 90% of what we are doing will be free." With regards to advertising, Brouwers thinks that there is potential for more innovative and profitable methods. "I do believe in intelligent ways of mixing advertising with journalistic content," he said, "as long as you are able to stay independent and be clear to your audience what is paid for." He referred to the way that True/Slant incorporates advertising: the ads are written in a blog style and provide more information than a banner or pop-up ad could, but they are clearly distinguished from other content (see here for an example.)

The type of advertising platform and audience that Brouwers hopes to offer could particularly appeal to local and regional governments, he said. "For them it's very worthwhile to get a very targeted audience for everything that they want to inform their citizens with."

The Telegraaf Media Groep has the advantage of already having a significant presence in the news landscape of the Netherlands, and Brouwers hopes that his new network can collaborate with Telegraaf's more traditional properties. He realises, however, that his platform is going to be very different, and also that the Telegraaf newspapers will be careful about how much of their content they give away.

As yet, many details of Brouwers' project need to be finalised and it is impossible to predict whether or not he will be successful. His idea has similarities to the redefined news eco-system proposed by Jeff Jarvis, where citizen journalists would be seen as important collaborators in the process of news distribution. These ideas make financial sense in the way that they plan to make use of information willingly provided for nothing by members of the public. And taking note of the fact that no one journalist knows as much as the community about what is going on seems wise. A fool-proof business model is yet to be found for hyperlocal news, but if such experimentation proves successful, it might well have an important role to play in the future of news.

THE YEAR IN NEWSPAPERS: top trends of 2009

Posted by Emma Heald on December 22, 2009 at 3:24 PM

2009 might well be remembered as a year of cutbacks and closures, but also a year when newspapers started to fight back, make changes and began to reassess unsatisfactory aspects of their business models. The world of journalism has indeed suffered some sad losses but there has also been much innovative thinking and progress in the way that news is gathered, reported and presented. Here are a few of the top trends that the Editors Weblog has noted this year.

Cuts, cuts, cuts: what are the consequences?

Some US cities have been left with just one daily newspaper, and speculation over which could be the first no-paper town was answered in July when the Ann Arbor News stopped printing. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer cut most of its staff and went online only, Denver lost the Rocky Mountain News. Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle and Boston Globe have struggled through threats of closure.

And even those whose survival is assured have been cutting staff - the New York Times just lost 100 newsroom staff - or closing bureaux - the Washington Post now has no domestic bureaux outside the capital. Others have cut down on international reporting. Newspapers have got thinner, some losing sections or even cutting printing days.

News agencies have also been feeling the effect of the cuts as papers look at how to make savings. The Associated Press has seen 180 papers threaten to cancel their subscriptions, though many of these have since decided not to. The Chicago Tribune, for example, trialled reporting without the AP for a week. Over in France, government-subsidised Agence France-Presse has also seen papers drop its service.

Overall, the cutbacks in Europe do not seem as drastic as in the US, though that is not to say that papers have been immune: even the Guardian is attempting to make significant staff cuts.

Can newspapers continue to perform their democratic role in society? Fewer journalists means fewer stories covered, fewer copy/sub editors means a greater chance of mistakes.

Start-ups can help to fill the gaps in reporting, but without proper funding they too will languish. It is essential that outlets must focus on efficiencies and how to make the best of their resources, and endeavour not to sacrifice quality.

To charge or not to charge (online)?

As newspapers' advertising-based business model started to let them down, one of the biggest questions of the year has been whether or not newspapers should start charging for their online content. So far, there has been a lot of talk but not much action. Walter Isaacson brought the micropayments question onto the agenda in February, sparking immediate controversy. The debate started to heat up in April when Journalism Online was founded by three industry experts with an iTunes-inspired mission to facilitate charging for online content: it proposed to offer bundled packages of content from multiple publications. This was swiftly

followed by Murdoch's promise in early May that all News Corp papers would be charging online within the year. MediaNews Group followed suit. The New York Times also seems committed but is wavering with regards to how. The Newspaper Association of America's call for payment models elicited a considerable response.

Meanwhile, some smaller papers such as the Schenectady Daily Gazette and the Texas Valley Morning Star have quietly integrated paywalls: are there lessons to be learnt there?

Murdoch, undoubtedly one of paid online content's most vocal supporters, is insistent that news is a valuable product and should not just be given away. This might seem hard to argue with, but some publishers are resolute that charging online is not the answer to solving financial difficulties, and remain committed to high traffic and other schemes such as highly targeted advertising to sustain cash flow. The Guardian, for example, is one of these. A multitude of surveys carried out have suggested that, unsurprisingly, charging online will not be too popular among consumers.

A couple of news outlets have adopted a less direct paywall: for example, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has introduced a membership club that offers new additional content and special events to its committed readers. This seems like a possible option for publishers who fear sacrificing their ad revenue but want to experiment with paid online content.

Will Murdoch fulfil his promises? Could charging online be the norm by the end of 2010? And what has happened to Journalism Online: will 'bundled' charging be an option?

The TWITTER explosion

By now, the idea of a journalist not using Twitter is verging on inconceivable. After CNN and Ashton Kutcher first crossed the one million followers mark in April in a highly-publicised battle, multi-million follower accounts are now not uncommon.

Its advantages are multiple: finding news, advertising stories, curating your community of readers. Twitter's limitations, however, are that its information can be hard to verify. These uses and limitations became particularly clear during the aftermath of the Iranian election in June, when many journalists were prevented from reporting and news was increasingly spread by social networks and citizen journalists.

Twitter has had a significant impact on the trend towards up-to-the-minute, real time news. It changed its homepage in July to place more of a focus on search and its potential as a way to discover what people are talking about right now. Google recently announced that it was to integrate real-time social network updates into its search results.

Will it last? Following much debate over how it would actually bring in money, it was just announced that Twitter has indeed become profitable, so one can assume that for now, at least, it is here to stay. Its advantages for journalists are more clear-cut than those of Facebook, but Facebook is used regularly by a wider range of people. With increasing use of Facebook Connect, might this become more prominent in 2010?

HYPERLOCAL: just hype or the future for news?

The ubiquity of free online news has, quite understandably, led news outlets to contemplate what they can offer that is unique, and going very very local has appealed to many, particularly as regional papers have been suffering particularly badly and hyperlocal news has potential to offer highly-targeted local advertising.

Mainstream news outlets have been seeing the benefits of local news: US hyperlocal aggregator Outside.in has seen considerable investment from CNN, and Everyblock, originally created with a grant from the Knight Foundation, was bought by MSNBC. The New York Times introduced a blog called The Local, in an area already overwhelmed by a variety of hyperlocal offerings such as Patch and Maplewood Online. Community websites have also been springing up in the UK.

But, as recently questioned by Benji Lanyado, is hyperlocal actually making money? Has the right business model been found?

One noteworthy initiative is the Futuroom/Nase adresa project launched by PPF Media in the Czech Republic (disclosure: the World Editors Forum has been involved in the project in the role of consultant) which has taken news reporting directly into the community and constructed an unusual alternative revenue stream. 'News cafes,' which place the newsroom in a cafe in the centre of town, are at the centre of PPF's strategy: these both provide income (enough to cover overheads) and offer the public direct access to journalists, allowing the newsroom to become a real part of the community. Led from the Futuroom base in Prague, Nasa adresa weeklies and websites are produced, and it seems as if the papers are selling.

It is too early to say whether the project, launched in June, represents a solution that could be used more widely, but looks it promising. Hyperlocal undoubtedly has potential, but an innovative business model needs to be found.

i for innovation

One of 2009's success stories has been new Portuguese daily i. As newspapers around the world suffer from financial difficulties, launching a new publication could seem like madness. But, so far at least, i has proved any sceptics wrong. The impressively-designed magazine-style newspaper focused on politics and economics has been selling, and has managed to capture a new hard-to-reach audience.

The paper has willingly abandoned traditional topic sections to allow more freedom of coverage, and focuses on opinion and daily in-depth analysis on key issues, taking into account the fact that its readers are likely to already be well-informed via other platforms.

New ideas and experimentation are encouraged, and enthusiasm is high. And, the paper does not put all its print content online: the website aims to be kind of a social news portal rather than a digital reproduction of the news in the paper.

As a new paper, it has been easier for i to break the mould, but are there useful lessons that established newspapers could learn from what i is doing differently?

Does a nonprofit business model have a significant place in the media landscape?

Whether or not going nonprofit is an option for newspapers is a question that has been discussed at length by media commentators and even by the US Senate. The main advantage: protection from market forces, the main disadvantage: no freedom to endorse political candidates. And, of course, there is the challenge of finding a rich enough donor.

The idea that an entire newspaper could be funded by a foundation seems unlikely, but investigative public interest journalism has been relatively successful at attracting nonprofit support.

Several funds and start-ups aiming to produce high quality investigative journalism have sprung up, following in the footsteps of the likes of ProPublica and the VoiceOfSanDiego. Locally targeted nonprofits are becoming almost abundant in the US: over the past 3 months the Bay Area News Project began (in September), Oakland Local was founded in October, the Texas Tribune launched in November, as did the Chicago News Cooperative and California Watch appeared earlier this month.

All these launches are good news for news in these areas, but are they sustainable? It has been argued that the nonprofit concept is merely propping up a flawed business model and limiting potential innovation. Time will tell which are successful.

Is there money in mobile?

Smart phones are becoming more and more common and could start to become the norm in 2010. Many news applications that enable a better reading experience have been built for Apple's iPhone, and some for Google's Android operating system - those created by the New York Times, the Guardian, and the Associated Press seem to be generally considered to be among the best. The Guardian's paid for app sold more than 9000 in its first two days.

But can they actually be a significant stream of revenue?

Many are free, and those like the Guardian's which have a one-off download fee (something consumers are likely to be willing to pay for?) might be able to recoup the costs of development with this income, but it does not constitute regular revenue. Advertising is limited so far - there is not much space on the small screen, for a start. Briefly covering the whole screen seems to be the preferred method of some papers on the iPhone: Le Monde's app opens with a full-page ad, for example.

It is possible to make content available via subscription. The Financial Times iPhone app only allows full access to online subscribers, and the Wall Street Journal has implemented a specific application subscription charge: $1.50 per week.

Will more do this? Can consumers be persuaded to pay on their phones for what they can get free online?

E-readers: not all they promised, but could that change in 2010?

The Kindle, though widely adopted by many newspapers, might not quite have lived up to expectations. Publishers only receive about 30% of what subscribers pay, and besides, e-readers are still prohibitively expensive for many and far from being a "must-have" product. Kindle users are generally older.

But could this be about to change? New products such as the Nook and the improved Sony range are entering the market and the Plastic Logic e-reader Que is to be released in early January. A group of publishers have also come together with plans to develop their own e-reader. Could this competition improve e-reader offerings? Already, Sony is apparently offering a better revenue share than Amazon does, and presumably, giving publishers and consumers a choice will make pricing competitive.

Or might e-readers lose out to tablet computers? The Apple tablet is expected early next year - with more functionality, could it and similar products appeal more to the younger generation?

Google: friend or foe?

Conflict over copyright reached new heights this year. Attacks on Google and other 'copyright thieves' who have built a business model off newspaper content have come from many corners: with News Corp leading the fight in the US but Spanish and German publishers too. Google consistently responds that it is fact a friend to publishers, citing the 1 billion clicks that it sends to news websites each month via Google News, and pointing out that publishers can easily opt-out of Google's indexing. Publishers retort that Google's current quasi-monopoly on search would make that difficult.

But could a rapprochement be on the cards for 2010? Google has been making conciliatory moves - it has updated its 'First Click Free' program to allow publishers more control over how much of their site is accessible free, it launched its first project that shares revenue with publishers, Fast Flip, and created new ways to view news, such as Living Stories, which might offer advertising potential if developed further.

At the WAN-IFRA World Newspaper Congress in Hyderabad earlier this month, INM's Gavin O'Reilly and Google's David Drummond were far from reaching an agreement but did agree that they would continue meeting in the future to try and solve the issue. Will publishers and Google find a compromise? Or might Microsoft and Bing step into the fray and change everything?

Cooperation

One of the consequences of extreme financial difficulties has been unexpected cooperation between former rivals: it has become harder and less desirable to stand entirely alone. A few examples:

Between rivals: content sharing has become more widespread. For instance, the Ohio News Organisation, a collection of seven newspapers who began sharing content last year in an attempt to substitute Associated Press coverage, produced a collaborative story in November.

Between old and new media: even one of the US's most prestigious newspapers has accepted the need to collaborate with new media projects. In August, the New York Times partnered with nonprofit investigative journalism outlet Propublica to publish a 13,000 word article on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that took two years and an estimated $400,000 to produce. The paper also published a story on the Great Pacific Garbage patch that was funded by crowd-funded journalism initiative Spot.Us. These were both stories that the paper would have been unlikely to publish otherwise

Between different platforms: at many papers, print and web are competing no longer, but are part of the one team. The Washington Post is the latest major paper to undergo integration.

For a list of top publishing strategies for 2010 please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com

Planning applications to continue in local UK papers

Posted by Emma Heald on December 21, 2009 at 11:27 AM

The UK government has ruled that planning applications must appear in local papers in a move that the Guardian described as a "lifeline" to local and regional newspapers. This local advertising will amount to £15 million, the Guardian reported.

The recent Killian Pretty Review recommended a relaxation of the rule that local authorities must advertise planning applications in local newspapers, but housing and planning minister John Healey is due to confirm today that the rules will in fact not change.

Industry body the Newspaper Society has opposed a growing trend for councils to set up their own local papers and websites on which planning statutory notices are published, thus taking away advertising revenue from local papers.

Local UK papers are facing many challenges, according to discussions at the recent AOP Microlocal Forum.

Source: Guardian

Why your website should be using Facebook Connect to attract visitors

Posted by Betsey Reinsborough on December 18, 2009 at 1:03 PM

Two thousand and nine was undoubtedly the year of the Social Network. In a world of loose economic foundations and falling advertising revenue, the social aspect of the Internet became even more important in the lives of many people.

The largest name in social networking has some mind-blowing statistics behind it: Facebook just hit the 350 million user mark; the average member spends 25 minutes a day on the site; there are over 90 000 apps on the site and an astounding half of all users go to the site everyday.

So how can newspapers take advantage of this social boom?

One of the easiest, and more effective ways is to install Facebook Connect on their websites. Facebook Connect allows for user interaction from a larger source than a typical site or blog is capable of creating for itself. Facebook has the fifth highest level of traffic on the web; that's a lot of potential uniques waiting in the wings.

The only problem is how to direct all of those users to a site off of Facebook, and this is where Facebook Connect comes in to help. According to the Washington Post, over 80 000 websites have now installed Facebook Connect and more than 60 million Facebook users use the service each month. The universally available tool has heaps of potential to bring traffic to a site as well as spread the proverbial word virally across Facebook. Yet many sites, particularly those of newspapers, are not taking advantage of the free publicity. Why?

WHAT FACEBOOK CONNECT CAN DO

Once a blog or site has installed Connect, readers can log in to the site through their Facebook accounts. Users can then leave comments, have discussions, and post the link to the page directly to their news feeds through the plug-in. The links will be seen on Facebook by the user's friends, who can then click through to the site because of the link. This is how the majority of traffic from social networking sites is generated. The cycle continues to become even more viral when the friend posts the same link to his wall, and a third friend clicks through.

The reason that Connect increases interaction on a third-party site is because it cuts down on formalities and allows virtually instant access to a comment field. Most blogs have an individual screen that users must fill out in order to comment on the site. Many are lengthy or invasive, and then there is always the annoyance of having to remember which e-mail you used to sign-up for which site. By the time someone's logged it, they may well have completely forgotten their comment and lost interest.

Using Facebook Connect, however, will allow the user to log-in to Facebook instantly and will also carry over a log-in from another window. If you've already checked your Facebook that day, you're instantly ready to comment on Vimeo or to Digg something. Most comment boards will even show the user's profile picture next to her log-in name. (Though all Facebook privacy settings continue over to third-party sites: if your profile picture is only viewable by friends on Facebook, it stays that way on all other sites as well.)

Most notably, Connect is free. No money is exchanged between the social networking site and the sites or blogs that install Connect. Yet, according to Facebook, Connect increases traffic to sites and makes users up to 15-20 percent more active once they are on the site. According to Joost, as quoted on the Facebook Connect site, "Connected users watch 30 percent more videos, enter 15 percent more comments, and invite 38 percent more friends." That's more pageviews, more uniques, and more content. And it's free.

One of the most important advantages of Facebook Connect is the information about the users that is provided by the service. Once someone has logged into a third party site through Connect, that site can gain valuable information about the user. Their names, locations, genders, ages and even photos become fair game for the site. This can make an enormous difference in regards to advertising. If the third party site is privy to detailed statistics about its commenters, then it can use this information to coax potential advertisers looking for a specific demographic. For example, MTV is not going to be looking to advertise on sites where the commenters are primarily in their 40s, but would be much more anxious to put an ad up on a site with a high level of teenaged activity. The use of data from Facebook Connect is an invaluable survey of the most active users on any given site.

The use of Facebook Connect can also help to monitor comments as well. Because the users are logged in under their real names, it is easier to ban people for inappropriate comments or harassment. Additionally, most people are more cautious of what they write when they are required to take credit for it; thus, inappropriate comments would decrease thanks to the required log-in.

SOME EXAMPLES OF IMPLEMENTATION

Some newspaper sites have already begun to take advantage of the benefits that Facebook Conenct has to offer. An early partner, The San Francisco Chronicle, has used Connect on its web site, SFGate.com, since January 2009. In that time, the traffic to the site has grown exponentially. Between early 2008 when first creating a Facebook page and July of this year, SFGate experienced a 1597 percent growth in pageviews, with 397 percent just between June and July.

The ability of Facebook to drive new users to sites is undeniable. One of the most successful implementations by a news site has been by The Huffington Post. The site officially partnered with Facebook in August with the launch of "Social News," in which the HuffPost aggregates stories that Facebook friends of a user have recommended or commented on. It can also post the same info about the user on his Facebook profile.

Of course, as expected from the HuffPost, the launch had a two-pronged intention. At the time of the launch, HuffPost CEO Eric Hippeau said, "our goal is to make HuffPost Social News the go-to place for Facebook users to share news--both the stories they love and the stories they hate--with friends. It should also appeal to marketers interested in reaching passionate, savvy readers who care about the news and who want to share their interests with friends."

The integration aimed to bring in pageviews as well as advertisers: something it has most definitely done. Since integrating Facebook Connect, the HuffPost has seen an increase of 500 percent in referrals from Facebook, and over 15 percent of all comments to the site come directly from Facebook. According to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, "with the integration of Facebook Connect, HuffPost Social News is now leading the way to make news even more of a social experience, giving people new ways to share and filter news and current events through their networks of friends on Facebook." This is an example other news sites might do well to follow.

USING CONNECT WITH OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS

The New York Times uses Facebook Connect, but in conjunction with its own social network, TimesPeople. The network, which went public in September 2008, allows users to log in on the site and then share articles, collect friends, join networks, and even publish to Twitter. The network has an application on Facebook that allows for integration between the two social media, and once a user is logged into TimesPeople, he can use Facebook Connect through the Times' site. This uploads all of the user's contacts from Facebook who are also on TimesPeople instantly onto the user's page. Users can also import contacts from Gmail, Twitter, and other sites. Although usage numbers were unavailable (the most recent was the year old report of 100 000 users), the recent integration of Facebook Connect and Twitter into the mix is likely to have greatly increased usage.

The Independent recently launched its own social network site as well. Plotstar provides readers with information about "where to go and what to do near specified locations, see what deals local companies offer and plan events with their friends." Plotstar is accessible through the Independent's website as well as the mobile site.

Once a user is logged in, he can use Facebook Connect to send invitations to events to friends or post an exciting happening on his profile. Through it, users can buy tickets for events or make reservations at restaurants. These additional services involving purchases, along with the added advertising on the site, will help to raise extra revenue. This not only brings new users onto the site, it also helps to increase brand awareness and encourage the purchase of subscriptions.

WHY (NOT) CONNECT?

So why don't more sites use Facebook Connect? Some do, but not nearly as many as would be expected. Why is this? Why are many papers denying themselves free promotion and guaranteed pageviews? Especially in the current economic climate and state of publishing? It could be a lack of knowledge. The program is still only a year old- many editors may still be in the dark about the possibilities that are out there and the things that Connect can do.

Many sites already have a Share on Facebook button installed and may feel that that is adequate for promoting themselves on the social networking site; however, with Connect installed as well, the interaction on the site would rise along with the amount of shared links. Isn't this a can't lose situation: more pageviews, more visitors, more publicity?

Sources: MediaGuardian, Newspaper Association of America, Washington Post, CNET [1] , CNET [2], TheNextWeb.com, InsideFacebook.com, ClickZ, newmediaage,

Scottish MPs examine local news

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on December 15, 2009 at 11:30 AM

An inquiry into the local newspaper industry and local journalism in Scotland has been established by the Scottish Parliament, with a call for evidence launched last week.

The inquiry will examine the challenges that the local and weekly newspaper industry faces. It will consider the impact of various causes of a decline in the industry, including the recession, the internet, free council newspapers, and the UK competition rules.

It will also examine the Digital Britain report by the UK government, and its proposals for an independently funded news consortia.

Future of journalism is digital and hyperlocal, says Dutch editor-in-chief Bart Brouwers

Posted by Helena Humphrey on December 14, 2009 at 6:15 PM

Having enjoyed a successful career in print journalism for over 25 years, holding the position of editor in chief at Sp!ts for the last four, Bart Brouwers has announced his departure from the role, leaving the job in the capable hands of his deputy, Willem Schouten.

Regional publishers increasingly turn digital

Posted by Nestor Bailly on December 11, 2009 at 1:21 PM

Many UK regional publishers have seen the opportunities of digital and internet publishing and have capitalized on it. But local presses are increasingly selling digital-format replicas of their print products, which is not quite the same thing as going 'fully digital.'

Local newspapers re-formatted for digital viewing, usually complete with page-turning 'technology,' have been popping up all over the UK and are beginning to outstrip traditional print editions.

UK local reporting in a bit of a pinch

Posted by Nestor Bailly on December 10, 2009 at 4:12 PM

Reporting from the AOP's Microlocal Forum in the UK, paidContent via MediaGuardian is less than enthusiastic about the prospects for postcode-level news pulling profits in 2010.

Below is a review of the attempts discussed at the Forum to make local reporting a sustainable business for both large papers and amateur start-ups. However, keep in mind that many regional and local publishers have been doing quite well for themselves throughout the recession, as large newspapers continue with cuts.

Newspaper group Tindle to put up paywalls for 40 regional newspapers

Posted by Nestor Bailly on December 9, 2009 at 4:31 PM

The Tindle Newspapers Group, which publishes over 200 local and regional papers in the UK, some of which are over 100 years old, has judged its various paid content experiments as successful and now plans to erect paywalls at 40 of its titles.

Based in Surrey, the announced increases in projections on how much can be made from paywalls follows a heartening speech by chairman and boss Sir Ray Tindle at Oxon Hoath in Kent on how the group will emerge from the recession 'with flags flying.'

Over 50 newspapers unite in common climate editorial

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on December 7, 2009 at 5:54 PM

Fifty-six newspapers in 45 countries have published the same editorial today, calling for delegates at the climate summit in Copenhagen to take action on climate change.

The editorial is published in 20 different languages. Most of the participating newspapers feature it on their front page.

Newspaper Society shows websites increase readership by 14%

Posted by Nestor Bailly on November 26, 2009 at 1:06 PM

The Newspapers Society has launched Locally Connected, 'the UK's first integrated print and online audience currency,' that measures combined print and online newspaper audience, according to a NS press release.

Seven of the largest local media groups, representing 70% of the industry, are already part of Locally Connected: Trinity Mirror, Northcliffe Media, Johnston Press, Newsquest, Guardian Media Group, Midland News Association and News Media.

NS president David Fordham said: "The development of a robust and reliable system of multimedia audience measurement has been one of the biggest challenges facing all media today. Locally Connected now gives advertisers a unique cross-media planning system, allowing them to effectively target local communities across the UK in print as well as online."

It has already provided valuable information, despite being just launched.

Local papers work overtime to cover Cumbria floods

Posted by Jennifer Lush on November 25, 2009 at 12:37 PM

Local newspapers have been working overtime in Cumbria, where persistent downpours have flooded the north English county, claiming five lives and destroying more than 2000 homes and businesses last week.

The Thursday edition of the Times & Star, usually a weekly paper distributed in the west Cumbrian towns of Workington and Cockermouth, came out as normal, but on Friday as the full extent of the destruction became apparent the paper released a second edition with four pages of flood coverage.

Newspapers and social media sites. What works?

Posted by Betsey Reinsborough on November 6, 2009 at 4:46 PM

Self-promotion is a tricky business. Over the past couple years, social networking has made it much easier (and cheaper) to get your name out there to the public. Most of the time anyway.

The use of social media for promotion had really began to pick up in the world of publishing, but to what extent? BBC just recently announced that they will be appointing a Social Media Editor in the near future. And a new article from the Newspaper Association of America explores the extent to which particular bookmarking and social networking sites increase page traffic for newspaper sites. It makes some interesting findings.

The Chicago Tribune's Associate Managing Editor for Innovation Bill Adee credits Digg with five percent of the newspaper's site's total traffic. That's half of all the pageviews generated from social media sites, which Adee credits with ten percent of total traffic on the site.

Employees become owners of own paper

Posted by Betsey Reinsborough on November 6, 2009 at 1:06 PM

The employees at the West Highland Free Press have just become their own boss. Last week, the ten employees officially became shareholders in the trust that owns the paper, making the Free Press the first newspaper in Britain to be owned by its employees, reports the Guardian.

In contrast to publications such as BusinessWeek and the Chicago Sun-Times that have been sold to outside proprietors recently, The Free Press has become employee-owned. The switch in ownership follows eighteen months of negotiations.

The paper has experienced a slight loss in subscribers lately, though it feels that it will soon make a recovery. This optimism comes mostly from lack of competition from the internet in rural Scotland. In fact, the paper simply offers samples and headlines from its paper on its web site rather than complete new stories.

Murdoch postpones date for introducing paywalls

Posted by Jennifer Lush on November 5, 2009 at 11:48 AM

Rupert Murdoch admitted last night that his plans for News Corp newspapers to begin charging online by June next year, might have to be postponed.

To date the media mogul has been the most proactive publisher in the move to charge for online news, consistently repeating the mantra that: "Quality journalism is not cheap and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting."

Australian newspapers get off lightly

Posted by Jennifer Lush on October 28, 2009 at 2:33 PM

The Australian newspaper industry is proving to be somewhat of a contradition to negative press surrounding the endurity of print media, with advertising revenue picking up faster than expected, share prices rising and local analysts increasing their optimisim.

"Newspapers are in a much stronger position than perhaps some of the headlines suggest," says Simon Davies, head of print at media agency OMD. "Certainly the Australian market has got off very lightly compared to other markets."

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