Results matching “editors rss feeds”

Twitter asks its users one question: "What are you doing right now?" It is a simple enough concept; 'tweeters' answer this question and their response enters the real time feeds of those who follow them, but it is becoming increasingly useful for reporters and papers as the social network attracts more and more users. Essentially, journalists can use Twitter in three ways: to find stories and other information and to track events, to publicise their work, and to connect with readers.

A real time feed of breaking news and thought

Twitter is an extremely useful journalistic resource: reporters can use it to watch for breaking news, follow sources and search for information. "It's like monitoring another wire service," said Robb Montgomery, CEO of Visual Editors. It can be used to get an idea of which topics are attracting interest and what people are talking about right now. There is a list of top 'trending topics' on the Twitter home page. It is a real time search, ahead of even Google in terms of timeliness.

The useful information can sometimes be hard to find amongst multiple messages about what users had for breakfast, or what they thought about last night's TV show, but as Noam Cohen said in Global Journalist "it turns out that when a million people stare at their navels, more than a few of them will also notice that the ground is shaking, the plane is nosediving, the police are shooting." Twitter is particularly relevant during events that involve large numbers of members of the public, and a shining example of its effectiveness arose after a US Airways flight landed on the Hudson River and the first picture of the plane was posted to Twitter by an observer. Online news editor at Sky News Jon Gripton, discussing his reasons for appointing a Twitter correspondent, said "it is effectively another news feed. It helps us source eyewitnesses and photos and other people who are on the scene of an event." It is also crucial for following conferences, for example.

Applications such as Tweetdeck allow users to sort their contacts into groups and to search more and more easily for Tweets on specific topics. The custom of adopting hash-tags to make searching easier has been widely adopted: if a user is tweeting about a particular subject they can add a tag into their tweet, such as #IranElection, #Mumbai, #Gaza. The hash or pound symbol distinguishes the tag from random mentions of the same word, and is a custom developed by Twitter users.

Twitter's fame as a news source grew curing the terrorist attacks on Mumbai last November, and during the ongoing conflict in Iran following the election on June 12, Twitter has come into its own, with those inside Iran using the social network to stay in touch and communicate with the outside world while phone networks are down and many websites are blocked. News outlets turned to the service for the latest updates, as they were forced to abandon the principle of only relying on their trusted sources for information due to what the New York Times described as a "news vacuum."

Questions about the reliability of Twitter have also been highlighted by events in Iran. Clearly, it is impossible to judge the authenticity of Tweets from a non-trusted source. During 'normal' circumstances, a journalist would be able to contact the 'Tweeter' for more details and verification, but that is currently overwhelmingly difficult. Journalists who incorporate news obtained by Twitter into their reporting should always be careful to stress their uncertainty about the source.

Publishing: one-to-many

According to a Harvard Business study, there is a small group of very active Twitter users: it found that "the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets."  Researchers Bill Heil and Mikolaj Piskorski concluded that "Twitter resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network": in other words, perfect for journalists looking to publicise their work. It is simple enough to use as a publicising tool: send a link to the story with a Twitter-friendly headline, which should generally be casual and chatty, even more so than web headlines.

It is without doubt a good way to attract extra readers. One of the advantages of Twitter to spread the word is that it is viral, users frequently "re-tweet" the links that they have enjoyed. A CNN breaking news feed, not actually started by CNN but purchased by the news outlet when it gained substantial recognition, was the second Twitter feed to reach one million followers and now has well over 2 million. The New York Times main feed has 1,238,673 followers at time of publishing, and the Guardian has 25,009 on its main feed, though far more on its Guardian Tech account: 782,662. Many news organisations now have multiple Twitter feeds for their different sections. Montgomery stressed the need to "explore" the best policy for your newsroom when deciding whether to stick to one or split them

Some feeds are generated automatically, and for many journalists and bloggers it has become second nature to 'tweet' an article immediately after publishing. Robb Montgomery believes that the "more successful Twitterers have moved beyond auto-tweeting their RSS feed" to make their tweets more personal. "You want to show that there's a real person there."

A social tool for branding

As well as using Twitter as a one-to-many publishing mechanism, journalists can also take advantage of the social element of Twitter, using it to connect with their readers and to receive feedback on articles. It is a contact point between reporter and reader, making the journalist more accessible. "You can run quick polls, get a pulse, get some ideas," said Montgomery. Twitter can be used as part of a journalist's own personal branding, to develop their own network of followers, depending on their personality as well as their reputation as a journalist. This could be particularly helpful for freelance journalists and bloggers.

Newspapers' advice to staff

Many news outlets have become concerned about the way that their employees use social networks such as Twitter. New York Times executive editor Bill Keller called for a "zone of trust" after reporters Jennifer 8. Lee, Michael Luo and Brian Stelter sent 'tweets' on what executives were saying about the how the paper might charge for online content, amongst other things during a staff strategy meeting. Shortly after, the New York Times announced the appointment of social media editor Jen Preston via Twitter. She is to concentrate "full-time on expanding the use of social media networks and publishing platforms to improve New York Times journalism and deliver it to readers," including, it seems, policing Twitter use.

The Wall Street Journal's advice on Twitter in a staff memo is that "business and pleasure should not be mixed" and although "common sense should prevail," staff meetings should not be discussed on social networks. The Washington Post's guidelines also mentions its reliance on reporters' common sense. The AP's new rules tell reporters "Don't report things or break news that we haven't published, no matter the format, and that includes retweeting unconfirmed information not fit for AP's wires."

Embracing Twitter seems to be essential for journalists and newsrooms in today's media landscape. This does not mean that all reporters should be tweeting all day long, and certainly does not mean that they should believe everything they read, but they should familiarise themselves with the site and work out how they want to use it. A newsroom policy might be necessary to encourage or warn journalists with regards to how the paper would like to see it used, and if possible, a social media expert could monitor and coordinate the paper's efforts. It is not necessary for journalists to embrace every aspect of Twitter, but most who try it find something beneficial.

On Tuesday 30 June at 15.00 London time, Robb Montgomery, CEO of Visual Editors will be speaking at a WEF webinar on "How the real time web can improve your newspaper's journalism." More details here.

The media coverage of the shock death of Michael Jackson has served to highlight press dynamics, raising interesting questions concerning the nature of breaking news reporting, the cult of the celebrity and the relationship between newspapers and their online news rivals. Has the fact that most newspapers were delayed in the initial reporting of the death emphasised the widening gulf between print and digital channels of breaking news? Conversely, has the death been exploited by the printed press as a facile, reader guaranteeing hit?

The news of the performer's death, in terms of rumour, confirmation and reaction has been overwhelmingly 'digital' in expression. The scoop belonged to the Los Angeles based celebrity website, TMZ, which confirmed the death an hour after it aired whispers of a suspected heart attack. The reporting was rapid fire: time of death: 2.26pm, LA time, time of update: 2.44pm. 

Yesterday, the recently founded Media140 held its first Twitter and microblogging conference. Held at London's Southbank Centre - a venue in the heart of the UK capital synonymous with innovation - the event largely focussed on the effects that Twitter and micoblogging are having on the news gathering process and was attended by journalists from Guardian.co.uk, TimesOnline, TechCrunch, BBC, Aljazeera, Reuters and Sky News.

Kicking off discussions, associate editor of the Sunday Herald and author of 'The Play ethic', Pat Kane, opened up the conference with a keynote presentation on the way breaking news services were dramatically changing the face of journalism: "Reading a newspaper on a street corner might be seen as banal. What's becoming just as banal is producing news on that street corner," said Kane. You can access his slideshow from the presentation here.

Reports recently out say that the Telegraph online attracts an impressive 8% of its traffic from
news aggregators and social networking sites such as Delicious, Digg, Facebook, Reddit, Stumbleupon and Twitter.

The 8% figure is equivalent to a staggering 75,000 unique visitors daily. So, how does the Telegraph do it?

Personalisation is one of the many avenues that the Internet has opened up to readers of news: rather than buying one newspaper with everything in it, people now have the chance to easily choose what sort of news they want to read, and from where. Back in 1995 Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT's Media Lab project, coined the term 'Daily Me' to describe a virtual daily newspaper customized for an individual's tastes, and since then many services have been launched to make this concept of personalised news a reality. One such successful company, which offers users the chance to create highly personalised home pages using many different widgets, is Netvibes. Founded in 2005, Netvibes now has 30 staff at its headquarters in Paris, five in San Francisco and a presence in London. The Editors Weblog spoke to CEO Freddy Mini to find out more about how Netvibes' different services work, and how they contribute to a user's personalised experience.

Netvibes operates on the principle that we should be able to feel at home in our online world. When a user creates a Netvibes page, they can change everything: they choose which widgets they want, where they are placed, how big they are, what shape they take, or what colours they use: "widgets must be fluid or liquid enough to participate in a more sophisticated layout," commented Mini. It is also possible to install Netvibes widgets on a computer desktop or on another website. There are plenty of opportunities to personalise within the widgets themselves, such as moving tabs around, or choosing a slideshow view. "There is a lot of intelligence in the product and we built it to make sure that people will try things and the product will react and surprise the user," he remarked. "It's all about making the pages really yours," stressed Mini, "as you can see, there is no prominent Netvibes logo." The interface is available in most European languages and progress is being made to translate it into others.

The platform is very user-friendly (see my 'Easter egg'-themed page, which took a matter of minutes to create), and it is easy for companies or publications to create simple RSS-based widgets, using a Netvibes 'wizard.' About half of the 180,000 widgets on Netvibes are RSS-based, Mini specified, meaning that they are essentially one or more RSS feeds in widget format, but there are many more complex ones involving video feeds or programming: searches for flights or hotels, or the possibility to access email or social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter.  Many different newspapers and news services have created widgets, often showing a list of the most recent stories.

Netvibes for newspapers

Netvibes can also help clients to develop more advanced widgets. With newspaper clients, Netvibes helps the paper to "granulize" the content into a widget and make that widget into a destination in itself, rather than just a way to "fish for an audience and drag the user immediately back to the site." Mini believes that if the widget simply links back to the site in one click, then "it is like an ad and it gives the user a poor return." So Netvibes built widgets have at least one or two clicks within Netvibes before redirecting to the paper's website, on the premise that the user feels at home within their page and will not want to be directed away the instant that they consult the news.

When asked if he has faced opposition from newspaper publishers who believe that services such as Netvibes are reducing their website traffic and advertising revenue, Mini explained that a few years ago this existed, but not any more. "If you are a newspaper you want to be in the widget game," he asserted, "now it's not even a choice: if you're not, another rival paper will be, and you will lose that part of your audience."

As well as their private page, which they can sign into from any computer, Netvibes also offers the chance to create a public page, or a Universe. It is published in real time, and can be seen by anybody who knows the URL  - www.netvibes.com/[username]. Other people cannot alter the page in any way, but can see what another user is reading. Users can search for friends and connect to set up a network within Netvibes; Mini clarified that the site was not built to be a social network, but it has "the basic capabilities" so that if people do not use another service they still have the opportunity to share what they are reading. The public pages are not necessarily just personal, publications such as the Financial Times have created one, which Mini described as a "showcase for their widgets."

Making money without advertising

No money is exchanged when papers place widgets on the Netvibes site in a standard sense. The company makes money in three different ways, notably not through advertising. The first is through promoting widgets by listing them first to make them far easier to find among the more than 180,000 options. The widget owner pays per install, and the widgets are marked as sponsored.

The second is through selling its 'Premium Universe' service, which allows companies to create their own page using Netvibes' software, but with their own branding and own URL. There is a set-up fee, and then a yearly contract to pay. The pages are fully 'personalisable,' unlike the free public pages, which are static, and consumers can create accounts and sign in. Unlike a user's personal page which they build from nothing and add content to, the Premium Universe pages come fully loaded with widgets, and they then have the choice to keep what the company is offering them or change it. The 80-90 clients include advertising agency Ogilvy, which created The Daily Influence, and French daily Le Figaro (www.lefigaro.fr/maune). The company can advertise and keeps the revenue generated. In this area, Mini explained, Netvibes is effectively being used as a publishing tool such as Wordpress, as there is the option to add "very sophisticated" notes.  

Installing Netvibes on the servers of others, effectively licensing Netvibes' source codes, is the company's third source income: Netvibes for Enterprise. This gives the client even more power to customise than with the Premium Universe, which is a turn-key solution that Netvibes maintains, and which remains on its server. For this service Netvibes sends the client one of its engineers who will spend five days installing the software and will remain for a further two days to train the relevant IT staff. The licenses are tailor-made depending on what the software is used for.

Each of these revenue streams accounts for about a third of the company's total income, said Mini, with some fluctuations. Amidst tales of financial woe throughout the industry, Netvibes' revenue is actually growing, with first quarter results significantly up compared to last year. "We should continue to thrive," Mini hopes, and confirmed that the company is on track to break even in September. The one way that the financial crisis has had an effect, he explained, is that interested customers are taking far longer to make decisions than usual: "that is the challenge."

Is personalisation the future: do people care?

One of the big questions concerning personalisation is: do people care enough to bother to do it? Netvibes has more than 3.7 million active users according to Mini, so seemingly some people do. Mini emphasised that for him, Netvibes' reason for being is to empower people, to give them the choice to make the pages that they want: he realises it is not something that everybody wants to do, but at least they are being given the chance. He thinks that in terms of news, it is unrealistic to assume that people will want to get all of their news from one source: for example if you follow several different sports based in different countries, why would you read about all of them in one newspaper?

The Netvibes service is fully driven by users: they choose what they want, there is nobody tracking what they read or use to recommend different articles or products which is the basis of some other personalisation offerings, such as the DailyMe. This avoids one of the potential problems connected with personalisation: privacy issues. Registering for Netvibes involves providing minimum personal information. However, it does mean that it is likely to only be used by more proactive, tech-savvy Internet users. There are also limitations to the service, for example, news can only be chosen by source rather than by topic or keyword, meaning that a user will still have to scour the web for information they need.  

From a newspaper owner's point of view, the proliferation of such sites cannot entirely welcome as they give readers the chance to access news without visiting the paper's website, hence generating no income. However, as Mini explained, there is now little point in resisting, and the possibilities provided to publishers, such as Premium Universe, are a valuable opportunity for those newspapers which are eager to embrace personalisation on their own sites, and there is an opportunity there for advertising revenue.

The Huffington Post last week announced that it would be launching an investigative journalism fund with an initial budget of $1.75 million. The HuffFund is a not-for-profit arm of the HuffPost, which "will produce a wide-range of investigative journalism created by both staff reporters and freelance writers" according to HuffPost founder Arianna Huffington.

Discussion has already begun over what the launch means for the shape of journalism and newspapers in the US. An article in the Guardian examines how the HuffPost has progressively moved away from news aggregation and towards original content, and what the transition means for the site. It points out that despite the site's rapid growth, it could be argued that its staffing and editorial procedures are not developing at the same rate.

Breaking Tweets is a website launched early this year to create a system of filtering through breaking news tweets so as to compile a story out of them, using the feeds as quotes.

An editor writes a short introduction to a story topic and then tweeters will send in their opinions, eyewitness media, or related links. The 28 editors at Breaking Tweets will then organize the most interesting feeds in an order that makes sense.

South African newspaper The Times has launched a new website that will be focused on covering the country's general elections, to be held on April 22, 2009. Saelections.co.za features news material and opinions from thetimes.co.za as well as information about the election from various Internet outlets and blogs, media analysis and interactive tools like Web voting.

Opinions and analysis are provided by contributors such as editors, columnists and bloggers from The Times and Sunday Times as well as politics expects and "thought leaders" from the field, wrote Biz Community. Furthermore, Media Tenor, which offers research on media, is tendering to graphs and annalsis. Saelections.co.za also contains links to Facebook groups, Twitter feeds and numerous political and electoral associations.

Various ideas to overhaul the business model of newspapers have been debated in recent weeks, such as the possibility of a return to paid online content, or a non-profit endowment scheme. Both have potential, but both are long term solutions that would take some time to implement, and for the immediate crisis at hand, could government help be the answer? At the end of January French President Nicolas Sarkozy approved a 600 million euro package of measures to save the beleaguered French press. Ideas for some kind of bailout plan have been floated in the US for several months now, following those for banks and the car industry, and similar discussion has taken place in the UK. Is a similar bailout likely to happen anywhere else? Could it save the struggling industry, or is such government involvement in the media too dangerous?

The French way

The French measures announced came largely from recommendations in a three-month study into the industry's health that was released in early January. The proposals were largely based on reducing productions costs, but the study also recommended that newspapers restructure their finances and that journalists be better trained for multiple forms of media, including online. Sarkozy's speech instructed newspapers to improve the content of their articles, bring in younger readers and transform business models

Arguably the most controversial measure was the decision to give 18 year olds a year-long subscription to a newspaper of their choice. This is clearly a direct subsidy, and one which many people do not think will work. It does seem optimistic to imagine that thousands of teenagers are going to find the time in their day to sit down and read a broadsheet rather than scan news online, and then be inspired to continue such a subscription. The package also included a major increase in state expenditure to support newspaper and magazine deliveries: 70 million euro from 8 million last year. The government will double its spending on advertisements in print publications. The state will also defer some fees the publications face, and Sarkozy announced a freeze on the cost of postal distribution and a reduction in payroll taxes for newsagents. He also extended tax breaks for investors in online journalism.

France's press is among the least profitable in Europe, with circulation figures of around half those of the UK and Germany, and national newspapers suffering particularly. According to the Guardian, it is "stifled by rigid communist press unions, a lack of kiosks selling papers and a declining readership far below that of the UK or Germany." Sarkozy has promised to increase points of sale, and work to improve newspaper delivery to both kiosks and homes. Another major problem is high printing costs, as presses are controlled by communist union Le Livre. Sarkozy announced that the state is aiming to reduce printing costs by 30-40 per cent by negotiating with the union.  

Sarkozy insisted that the aid package was not an attack on press freedom, the Guardian reported. "I don't understand how anyone could doubt the legitimacy of the state in this process," he claimed, comparing the press to any other industry in need of aid, such as the automobile sector. Incidentally, the French car industry just received a 6.5 billion euro loan from the government. And the French state already gives 1.5 billion euro in direct and indirect aid to the press each year. The Guardian asserted in January that "the public's trust in the media is at an all-time low in a climate where politicians rewrite their own interviews for publication and the president's powerful business friends, from construction to arms manufacturing, own several major papers or TV stations." Which does not really sound like ideal circumstances for the government to get further involved in the media. It is too early to assess the effects of the bailout on newspapers, though it seems to have been received favourably by editors.

UK's regional focus

Another country where public trust in the media is at an all time low is the UK. Research by the Media Standards Trust revealed on 9 February that only 7% of the public trust national newspapers to behave responsibly. "Without urgent reform we believe that self-regulation of the press will become increasingly ineffective at both protecting the public and promoting good journalism and, without prompt action, there is real danger that it will become increasingly irrelevant," said Martin Moore, director of the Trust. The report calls for government intervention to ensure press accuracy and to limit intrusion on people's private lives. But would such government intervention be accompanied by financial aid?

In response to Sarkozy's announcement of the French plan, a spokesman for publisher Trinity Mirror said: "We don't believe that direct subsidies are a safe or sensible way forward. There are two easy things for the government to do. The first is to indicate that they will intervene and allow consolidation of regional newspapers on public interest grounds. The second is to return to using local newspapers for public notices and public sector job advertising." Many papers have called for changes to competition regulations in the local and regional sectors to more easily facilitate mergers, and the UK's Office of Fair Trading has confirmed it is to launch a full consultation on the local media ownership regime next month. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger went a step further and raised the question of public subsidies for newspapers in November 2008, arguing that as broadcasters compete for government funding, why shouldn't local newspapers too? "There has never been less certainty about the future of local news in this country," he said. Roy Greenslade, amongst others, criticised this view, saying that information should not all be funded "through the mechanism of the state."

American opposition

Across the pond in the US, Connecticut legislators sparked debate at the end of 2008 by petitioning the state government to help local papers whose publisher Journal Register said it could not afford to keep them open any more. Journal Register has been forced to close 'dozens' of newspapers in recent months. Connecticut's Department of Economic and Community Development is offering tax breaks, training funds, financing opportunities and other incentives for publishers, but not cash. According to economic development commissioner Joan McDonald, Connecticut does not see trying to find a buyer and offering tax breaks as exerting influence on the press. In January, the publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News were in discussions with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell about getting the two largest state employee pension funds to help bail out the papers.

But there has been considerable opposition to any such notion, as could be expected in a country which prides itself on its free market attitude. The Wall Street Journal asserted that a newspaper bailout was "the worst bailout idea so far," and stressed that "independent journalism is valuable, but only if it is truly independent."  Editor & Publisher editors warned that although it could be tempting to seek government assistance, "Uncle Sam's purse comes with lots of strings attached." Paul Janensch, a journalism professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, and a former reporter and editor, commented "you can't expect a watchdog to bite the hand that feeds it."

There is already some unobtrusive government assistance to American newspapers, for example the US Postal Service has offered discounted postage rates. Also, several cities have papers running under Joint Operating Agreements, created following the congressional Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 to keep competing urban dailies viable despite circulation declines.

Can a bailout be justified?

It is possible that other European countries will follow the French example, but an American bailout seems to be extremely unlikely. The British people are used to the idea of public funding for news, given the prevalence of the BBC, so maybe they would be more open to the idea of more government subsidies. But it could also be argued that given the major presence of the BBC, there is enough government involvement in news already.

It is undeniable that as one of the main roles of the press in a democracy is to criticise the government, it must remain entirely free of any government influence, and there is always the risk that government support could lead to influence. The idea of the press relying on the government to any extent is extremely unappealing to many people. But another valid point is that given the importance to any democracy of an active press, it is the government's duty to support the press in time of need.

Making sure that press friendly laws are in place, rather than offering a cash injection, is probably as far as the government should go, in 'normal' circumstances. But perhaps given the current problems plaguing the industry, some limited, short-term government assistance could be justified, to help papers make the necessary adjustments to working online, until an appropriate business model can be found, or until the economy starts to recover. In any kind of bailout, help should be given in such a way where there would be no risk that it could be considered as an attempt to influence. It would be essential to ensure that any help offered to newspapers was offered country-wide, and that it did not give any papers advantages over others. And government support should not be a substitute for innovation, and should not stifle entrepreneurship.

In the run-up to the 16th World Editors Forum being held in Hyderabad, India March 22-25, 2009, the Editors Weblog is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. This week, we looked Global Post and Huffington Post, two news websites that are challenging the traditional newspaper business model. Below, editors from around the world share their own thoughts about ONLINE-ONLY NEWS PUBLICATIONS.

AFRICA
Azubuike Ishiekwene, Executive Director, Punch Nigeria
A Nigerian site equivalent to the Huffington Post named Saharareporters.com is a competitor of Punch, but we don't consider it a threat. However, the site has helped to keep us on our toes. We believe that print will remain an indispensable medium for the validation of meaning among readers. We have nearly 36 years of credibility which must count for something. My colleagues in the newsroom agree that competition from online can only make us stronger and is unlikely to supplant our relevance as long as we're listening to the readers.

LATIN AMERICA
Marcelo Rech, General Product Director, RBS Group, Brasil
By now, newspaper people should always have in their head that they and their newspapers are competing with every kind of consumer distraction, from YouTube to Twitter.

That's why we have to work harder and harder to promote the newspaper to the public and advertisers, especially the basic idea behind the newspaper; to be THE place for news (local, political, national, general, etc., depending on the strategy of your paper), and be far better than your competitor. This is not a new story; it is the same concern of our ancestors 150 years ago.

EASTERN EUROPE
Roman Gallo, Director of Media Strategies, PPF Financial Group
Online-only news sites are not a threat to traditional news gatherers. These project are only threats for media companies that do not understand changing media landscape, that do not understand that publishing on only one channel, one platform media (only print, only TV...) is not a future. One platform media will be able to survive only if they are strictly targeted and focused at a very clear (and I would guess a very limited) audience. In the case of my former publishing house, we are partially in competition with these sites because we run a fully-integrated and clearly targeted multimedia system. .

WESTERN EUROPE
Espen Egil Hansen, Editor-in Chief, Verdens Gang Multimedia, Norway
Several of the stand alone online news sites are really good, they are often better than us to utilize the possibilities of internet, and they force us to improve our own products. Nonetheless, I believe these are not our most important competitors.

The key now is to understand that the technological development gives traditional media a competition from a range of players we don't necessarily define as "media". There are three factors demanding that we analyze the competition with fresh eyes:

THE USER'S TIME: The time spent on popular sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Nettby.no and so on is dramatically longer than on news sites. This trend is reinforced by new mobile platforms like iPhone. Look around you: On the metro, in the cafeteria, at the breakfast table -in all the situations where people traditionally have been enjoying a newspaper, more and more people are now staring into some sort of screen. This represents a dramatic competitive shift because these services steal time from that which used to be allocated to newspapers and news sites.

NICHE SITES and SOCIAL NETWORK: Within any thinkable niche there exist special interest sites and services with more depth, higher quality and that are perceived as more effective than newspapers and news sites. Although many of these are not in the news business in a traditional sense, they are still our competitors because they so strongly affect the way in which we gather information in our daily life.

ADVERTISING: We are in direct competition with Google when it comes to the big advertising money. In addition, we see that the classified ads, that have been a great source of income for many, are now moving to sites not attached to traditional media houses in any way. In my mind, the most important question for 2009 is this: What will fund the journalism in the future?

Altogether, these three factors represent competitive challenges that must have consequences for all parts of our operation. Rather than pointing out the stand alone news sites as our new competitors, we need to search deeper and ask ourselves: "With this new media reality - what should we be in the future?"

NORTH AMERICA
Ed Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief, Globe and Mail, Canada
We don't see these sorts of sites as a threat per se to traditional news gathering. But we do see them as competitive. They are in the business of aggregating niche audiences around a public debate of the issues of the day. Anyone who aggregates audience obviously is a competitor, but can be seen as a partner, too.

First off, our unique proposition lies In our ability to generate the news,  often news that would not exist without our journalistic efforts, that feeds the fires of public debate. Of course, newspaper companies have long been in the commentary and opinion part of the business, too, and need to remain so.

But unlike with print, where the barriers to entry are so high, we have no option to live with many more alternatives in the digital world. So we have to consider whether we are primarily distributors or creators, along with our audiences (or communities) of content.
While I suspect we will continue to distribute through our own channels, I see no reason why we won't seek to maximize our reach by aligning our branded content through other distribution channels, such as Politico. Communities are being formed all over the place. We need to get out of the old mindset that they will come to us and go out, introduce ourselves and overwhelm them with the quality of our insights in their areas of interest.

Terry Eberle, Executive Editor and Vice President, Fort Myers News Press, Florida
Local information is what we are about. No one can compete with us for information in Southwest Florida. We must keep that in mind as we do our online work and plan our online and print newspapers. How can we make that national story local? How do we bring a national story home to our readers. On Jan. 20, Barack Obama will be sworn in as president of the United States. The world and national press will be all over that story. But, we will be on a bus traveling from Fort Myers, FL filled with people going to see this historic day. We will be on this bus, we will be doing live video on this bus. In other words, we won't be spending our time just rewriting the main story that we will receive from dozens of other places. We will spend our time reporting on this historic event through the eyes of local people.

@BreakingNewsOn launched a new site, BNO News, which will serve as a public news wire service.  The original BNO was launched in 2007 as an effort to break news before any other media organization through Twitter.

BNO currently has 16,400 followers and hopes to expand. They report 24/7 with news updates from around the world through Twitter, using citizen journalists.  According to TechCrunch, BNO reports on the same events as the mainstream media, but usually faster and provides "more context with relevant text messages and links about the topic right after posting the actual breaking news."

The Editors Weblog has been following the Integrated Newsroom trend for several years. Major papers around the world from the Guardian to the New York Times to Kuwait's Awan, and the Hindustan Times of India have merged print and online operations. But there are plenty of papers that haven't taken the integrated route. In the following article, Espen Egil Hansen, Editor-in-Chief of Verdens Gang (VG) Multimedia, Norway, shows that keeping print and digital teams separate at his paper have led to steady profits for both newsrooms.

I am generally sceptical of the idea of one media house, one newsroom. When was the last time anyone won both the 100 meter dash and marathon during an Olympic game?

There are two fundamental issues that call for a greater degree of separation and specialization - what I like to call the model of focus.

First and foremost; newspaper and internet are by nature so diverse that they demand completely different working methods and organizations in order to succeed. This applies at all levels: in the editorial department, sales, distribution and management. To argue that "newspaper" and "online news" are the same because both are news, makes as much sense as saying that a roaring river and a glass of water are the same because both are water.

"The newspaper and the internet are by nature so diverse that they demand completely different working methods and organizations in order to succeed."

The strength of the online journalism is the possibility to develop the product minute by minute, interacting with the readers. Their experience and presence (the readers are where we aren't, they know what we don't) becomes an integrated part of the continuous journalistic working process. An article does not have a deadline, the readers submits comments, we ad links and so on.

The strengths of the newspaper are opposite. Towards deadline one search for the most exclusive story and the best possible angle on another story. These stories are then being thoroughly edited and presented on a limited space.
 
While internet by nature has its strength in that the users themselves can choose from a stream of information (the roaring river), the strength of the newspaper is its well edited presentations (the glass of water with a twist of lemon).

"The idea of integration is a threat both to the printed product and for the online news site."

Furthermore, the basic differences in business models, rate of development, distribution and so on are also so substantial that they in my opinion demands specialized organizations in order to succeed.

The second fundamental issue that calls for a greater degree of separation is that we are living in the middle of a media climate change! The glaciers (the traditional publishing houses) are melting, the storms (the competitors) are getting violent and coming from unexpected places, and the changing circumstances for life are such that ancient species must succumb to new ones (goodbye Tribune - hello Facebook)

Where we earlier had to cope with a certain number of newspaper and channels on TV and radio, we are now exposed to an infinite offer of information wherever we are. As I am writing this, on one of the first days of 2009, I am simultaneously following one of many Twitter-feeds reporting a new round of bombing in Gaza. The news agencies will report the same stories during the next hour, but without the nerve and credibility of someone who are in the midst of the falling bombs...

"As I am writing this I am simultaneously following one of many Twitter-feeds reporting a new round of bombing in Gaza."

In this entirely new media landscape, I believe the specialists will win. The ones that are best adapted and that are able to change fast enough. What until now has been regarded as the power of publishing houses - tradition, position, stability and financial security - is now turning to become a weakness.

The idea of integration is in my opinion a threat both to the printed product and for the online news site. To the printed product because the integration in a way conceals a level of costs and way of working that is not sustainable in the long run. And the threat to the online site is that it will inherit the way of working, organizing and a level of cost that is not competitive in this market.

In the publishing house of VG we have, with success, chosen the model of focus. We have two companies, two boards, to editorial departments, to chief editors, two managing directors and so on. We cooperate where appropriate for both organizations (which means a lot), but at the same time we are free to choose whatever necessary in order to succeed on our own platform. We've made some tough choices. While down-sizing by 100 people in the print organization we hired 40 more online. No one was moved from print to online. With this model of focus we've achieved the number one position online and in the print market. Both editions have for the last couple of years been very profitable.

Our success is obviously not a guarantee for this model of focus being the best one in the years to come. Neither is our success with the model a guarantee that it will work in all other media houses, and markets. It makes greater sense to integrate if you're at a number two position (or lower), than if you are leading in the market. The current financial turmoil is accelerating the media climate change, and we must constantly evaluate whether our organization is optimal.

Qatar based news network, Al Jazeera has announced a partnership with Sony Ericsson.  The partnership will allow Al Jazeera to provide built-in AJ RSS feeds on Sony Ericsson phones in the Middle East and North Africa, according to journalism.co.uk.

The RSS feeds will offer daily international news updates in both English and Arabic on certain models of Sony Ericsson phones.

To say the least, 2008 proved a difficult year for newspapers in many nations. Rising printing and distribution costs, waning circulations and fragmented audiences continued to challenge a business model that seems increasingly outdated. And despite many promising advancements made by newspaper companies in Internet and mobile, revenues remain far behind those of print.

But the news is far from all negative. Below is some food for thought for newsroom executives everywhere, ways in which newspapers began adapting to the modern media landscape in 2008 that will continue through 2009.

INTERNET TRENDS BECOMING NEW TOOLS FOR JOURNALISM
2008 saw the continued proliferation of social and professional networking sites Facebook and LinkedIn, with newspapers and journalists, with newspapers and journalists, such as the New York Times well-known columnist Nicholas Kristof, creating their own profiles, applications and connecting with new audiences. User-Generated Content (UGC) continued to gather speed as well, with CNN's iReport in the US and LePost in France among many others around the world. A December report by the Bivings Group also noted that 58% of US newspapers now use some form of UGC.

But the biggest social media revelation to journalists came in the form of 140 characters. The social site, Twitter, which allows users to post short messages for all to see, officially became a widespread tool for journalists in 2008. For example, journalists covering the US Presidential Elections took live notes from conventions and rallies that readers could follow and that also helped to shape those journalists' main story. During the Mumbai terrorist attacks, "tweets", or Twitter messages, appeared as the first news of the attacks. Twitter feeds can also be aggregated, bringing all angles of those covering a certain event into one, comprehensible, instantly-updated record.

Another Internet trend is the "Personalized Web", evoked by newspaper experiments such as MyTimes and start-ups such as Netvibes that provide customizable pages based on RSS feeds and widgets. Arguably the boldest example of personalized news is the BBC's revamped homepage, released in March 2008, which allows users to create their own page based on the BBC information they use most. But personalized news seems to be picking up more slowly than social media. For one thing, Internet users are used to getting the information they seek from many Web pages and may not yet be ready to create their own pages. Secondly, search engines still rule, meaning that traffic to most news sites continues to come through Google, its competitors and their various news and alerts functions. So a customizable homepage like the BBC created, which could ultimately prove a competitor to search engines, remains to become a habit of the general Internet public.  

Personalized news and social media are just two examples of all of the innovation that is occurring in digital media. As technologies continue to rapidly develop, how are journalists and publishers going to keep up? Is it worth learning to use all of these tools if six months down the line they prove to be a fad? Are these technologies hurting or helping newsrooms gather and report news?

Chances are, in 2009 journalists everywhere will continue to experiment with the latest digital fads, and smart newsrooms will set aside R&D funds to play around with new ideas. Who knows? Despite predictions that 2009 will be a difficult year for newspapers, with a lot of hard work, calculated risk and a bit of luck, the industry could find the online golden egg that it has been seeking.

PROLIFERATION OF ONLINE-ONLY NEWS SITES
Perhaps filling in for the difficulties of the print product, more high-profile Internet-based sites began popping up in 2008. Perhaps most notably, The Huffington Post, launched in the summer of 2005, has already jumped to one of the US' top-30 news sites, bolstered by the US Presidential Elections, according to Nielsen Online. Media pundit, entrepreneur and Rupert Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff trumpeted the late-'07 launch of his news aggregator Newser as a "revolution in how people get their news." One year after Wolff's launch, he gained a competitor in Tina Brown, a former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor, who launched her own, rapidly growing online-only site, The Daily Beast, a mixture of aggregated and original articles. And these are only the high-profile, American examples. The relatively low overhead costs of launching an online-based site combined with the ease of aggregating content and news commentary means that this trend will surely continue in 2009. But there is one problem with the sites mentioned above. Aggregation and commentary can only go so far: in an online environment, what happens to the investigative journalism that newspapers have provided for the past two centuries?

NOT-FOR-PROFIT JOURNALISM
Investigative journalism is expensive to produce. Money-wise, it has always been a loss-leader for newspapers. But with modern-day information ubiquity, investigative journalism is just a loss. Whereas once newspapers could claim ownership of a groundbreaking piece and sell papers and advertising around it, now readers are often unaware of the original source of the story they are reading on the Web. So what is going to happen to the type of watchdogging we need for democracy?

Several non-profit start-ups have begun to answer that question. In late 2007, former newspaper editor, Joel Kramer, took his print expertise and moved it online with the launch of the non-profit Minnpost.com. Former WSJ editor Paul Steiger did something similar with ProPublica. The Voice of San Diego, and other similar sites around the US, are making a name for themselves as "serious, original reporting by professional journalists," with the New York Times declaring the sites "stand out" amongst Internet news sites. Crowdsourcing site OfftheBus, a partnership between the Huffington Post and the non-profit NewAssignment.net, helped capture the 2008 Elections and the Knight News Challenge winner Spot.Us is collecting donations from the public to fund investigative stories. Even former Merrill Lynch newspaper analyst Lauren Rich Fine backed the non-profit model in 2008.

With this in mind, are the days of major metropolitan and national newspapers digging up the dirt on businessmen and politicians over? For the time being, no. But newsrooms everywhere are under extreme economic pressures and have been cutting core staff, making it even more difficult for newspapers to conduct the type of investigative journalism their communities need. Don't be surprised if more non-profit (no dividends to shareholders), Internet based (low operating costs) ventures spring up to fill the gaps.

COMPETING NEWSPAPERS PARTNERING UP
As many newspaper newsrooms are cutting staff, wire services should be in greater demand than ever. But 2008 saw a backlash against the world's biggest news agency, the Associated Press, by its members. Several publishers handed in their notice to the non-profit agency partially in response to price hikes and complaining of low value for their money.

In response to the AP mini-exodus, some papers, even those in competition with one another, began joining forces. Papers in Ohio and Florida whose geographical coverage overlaps are swapping stories and even combining bureaux. Not only will this help the papers save money, but it frees up time for reporters to cover issues not being covered elsewhere. In the current economic climate, this trend will continue, but not without its effects on the industry.

Some traditional news hounds would argue that two papers covering similar stories in a certain region add depth and uncover more facts that may otherwise be lost to readers. This may be true. But is it really worth having two reporters on the scene to gather one or two more different pieces of information when there may be other stories elsewhere? And what about the multitude of photojournalists that different organizations send to press conferences and like events where the story subjects don't move much? Is it really worth sending all of those photogs? Couldn't photos just be shared? Without a doubt, these are questions that cash-strapped publishers and editors are asking themselves right now. Expect to see more cross-corporation cooperation in 2009.

IS PRINT REALLY THREATENED?
We've said it before and we'll say it again: print is not going to die. But, considering the trend of the past year, print's reach will be considerably reduced, at least in Western nations.

During the last few months of 2008, publishers' struggle to maintain the high costs of printing and distribution has become apparent. In October, The Christian Science Monitor, a beacon of quality American journalism, announced that it would stop printing its daily edition. In mid-December, the Detroit Free Press, which recently won a broadcast award, decided to limit home delivery to Friday's and weekends while trimming the daily single-copy sale paper to one section. Most recently, the American Society of Newspaper Editors is considering dropping "paper" from its name.

What do these cuts mean for the news"paper" industry? As circulations drop across the Western world, it could mean substantial savings. Weekday papers often make a loss to begin with, so cutting the costs of printing those papers should cover any lost advertising revenue in those same papers.

Perhaps the question publishers should be asking themselves is "Do cutbacks on the paper product matter to readers"? Well, cutbacks will certainly change the face of the newspaper industry. But in the end, media houses are in the news "distribution" business, not the news"paper" business. As long as their news is published, media houses will have completed their service to the public.

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."

"You need to make a mobile site," said Ilicco Elia, Head of Mobile Europe at Reuters, at the 3rd World Digital Publishing Conference & Expo held in Amsterdam. He also said media organizations should begin thinking of mobile as an equally important platform, rather than as an isolated venture.

A number of newspapers have yet to even create a mobile edition, but Elia encouraged them to try to launch a basic version.

Take your regular website, strip it from its pictures, RSS feeds and every other bells and whistles but text.

Once the content is made available to users, then developers can begin implementing fancier features.

According to him, Reuters' current mobile site was initially designed to be as simple as possible, "so you can get what you want as quickly as you want."

But "First things first, get the content available on a mobile phone."

Relative to business opportunities, "You need to start thinking of mobile as a part of a much bigger platform," said Elia. "This as a package is worth more than the sum of each part."

He did warn publishers and editors not to expect generating substantial revenue through mobile, at least in the short term.

Source: Ilicco Elia, Head of Mobile Europe, Reuters - Photo credit: Emiel Muijderman

Google News cannot be compared to other news sites like Yahoo News or CNN.com, according to PaidContent.org.

Google News gathers content with the help of computers who scan news on the Web and does not contain any ads. Meanwhile, other news sites like CNN.com create licensed material that passes through editors.

Google News groups articles by subject and ranks article by importance based on factors like  authority of publisher or placement of article in site. NYT writes that Google "packages the results as a set of links, sending readers to the sites where the articles appear."

According to the New York Times, Google executives claim that traffic is not the primary aim but that Google News "helps the company produce better search results and helps users find news sources that they might not know about otherwise."

According to the NYT, the growth rate of Google News is only 10 %, compared to MSNBC.com's 42 %, which got the site 10.4 million in traffic.

Dan Gillmor, who is director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at the Arizona State University School of Journalism, said that he is surprised "how little" Google News "evolved, at least on the surface", NYT wrote.

Marissa Meyer, vice president for Google search and user experience, said that Google News is one of "the most innovative" Google features and that its users actively employ the  Google search engine  and other services, NYT wrote.

She also mentioned that news results do emerge on the main Google search page, alongside adverts.  According to Meyer, "it directly feeds the main business."

Google News is sometimes seen as a competitor to other news providers, even if it brings traffic to the news site. Industry executives, according to NYT, think that because Google News links to a remote article, the readers are not likely to stay on the news site.

According to Braig Moffett, a Sanford C; Bernstein & Copany analyst, the Internet "made it possible to aggregate news cheaply". Consequently, news providers stopped charging for content. "Google may be doing more to accelerate this trend than anyone, but they are not doing it out of malice,"  Moffett said.

Tribune Co. owner Samuel Zell accused Google of stealing news stories for their own gains. In Europe, Belgian prosecutors said that Google News had "violated copyright laws" without asking for permission to link to the articles, NYT reported.

Google said that the company wishes "to help, not hurt, journalism", NYT wrote. Its chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, said that the company has "a huge moral imperative" to aid news outlets in becoming more "successful online", NYT wrote.

Last year, several features were added, such as different country and language versions of Google News. The number of "duplicate articles" is being reduced, as "authoritative" and "original" news stories are being displayed, according to NYT.

There is also the chance to personalize Google News, by focusing on local news and mapping the news event sites on Google Earth. Users can also post comments and search quotes.

Different sides to the same story are being provided by the news search engine, helping to make people "wake up and think," said Krishna Bharat, the research scientist behind Google News. "That's what makes people news junkies," she added.

NYT wrote that even if there have been some innovations, Google News "still lacks many of the flashier features that have attracted users to more conventional news sites, including interactive graphics and video."

Analysts have begun to question automated products and their limitations. Mark Glaser, PBS MediaShift editor said, "there is only so far you can go with an algorithm" because , "in the long run, people want a human touch."

Source: PaidContent.org, New York Times

See Also:

8 efficient and visual ways to present your online news
How to maximize your site's visiility in Google search ranking

A great post that will be of interest to all visual editors: 10000words.net recaps eight original and graphically enticing ways to present and organize information (click here to view all graphic representations):

- The Photo stream:
Instead of displaying headlines and links, this format features news photos in a grid. When the mouse cursor is over one of the pictures, the headline is displayed.

- Newser:
A tiles news combination of photographs and headlines. When the mouse cursor is moved over one of them, more detailed information pops up. Newser also offers a toggler feature to switch between soft and hard news.

- Spectra:
MSNBC.com developed a visually pleasing template to read RSS feeds.

- NewsWorldMap:
A very basic format that can be useful to readers, as NewsWorldMap simply combines a Google map of the world with Google News items related to each location.

- Visual Dictionary Online:
The Visual Dictionary Online doesn't aggregate news, but its interface, which displays a picture with links to the various elements of the picture, can be useful to newspapers.

- 10x10:
This site presents the news in a ten by ten grid of photos. It's a little overwhelming but can be visually attractive.

- Times:
The Times newsreader is a simple animation that aims to replicate the feel of flipping through print pages online. It is only available for Mac OS X Leopard though.

- LiveNewsCameras.com:
Recently launched, LiveNewsCameras.com proposes a grid of live video feeds from broadcasters and news organizations internationally.

Unfortunately, due to a few technical difficulties, we can't show you the screenshots here. You'll have to click on the individual links or please click below to view all the various formats on screen.

Source: 10000words.net through Journerdism

David Dunkley Gyimah, Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminister, UK, was one of the speakers at the fifth session at the 15th World Editors Forum. The topic of his speech was "Videojournalism-now and what next...integrated multimedia videojournalism?"

Since the birth of the videojournalism newsroom at Channel One in the United Kingdom in 1994 the change has been dramatic. That establishment cost 25 million pounds. The equivalent of the media inventory in that office can now fit in one laptop. Videojournalism has become a very effective and inexpensive way of producing fast visual news.

But what are the key elements of good videojournalism?

One of the most important parts is a clear vision at the newsdesk of what is wanted and expected. Good communication between the editor and the journalist is crucial.

There's a few clear considerations to decide before heading out into the field, for instance the mobility, the robustness and the ergonomics of the equipment. Videojournalism is about being quick and ready to go. It's essential that the camera and other equipment makes this possible. It may perhaps not always be the wisest choice to buy the most expensive camera just for the sake of it.

Another necessity is to invest in a good computer and professional editing software like Adobe Premiere for PC's and Final Cut Studio for macs.

The work of creating news from videojournalism is a process of co-operation between management , journalists and technical support. This cooperation must be perfected because videos are published on news websites, on tech news blogs, in rss-feeds and as video podcasts.

The workflow behind this output is based on ideas before the actual production takes place. According to Dunkley Gyimah, a few of the questions that have to be asked during this procedure are; What sort of content?, What is the style of the reporter?, Are VJ's suppose to fill other articles?, How long should the video be? Where and how does the production take place? Finally there's the question of output. In what mediaforms should the video be published? Web? TV? Phone? Or all three?

For Mr Dunkley Gyimah one very important thing that must not be forgotten is that the journalistic quality usually isn't the problem. " It's the paradigm shift of thinking visually," he said, emphasizing the quality of the visuals.

Broadcaster Fox Chicago launched LiveNewsCameras, currently in beta version, a site that attempts to collect, organize and feature a maximum of live video streams from news sites in the US and abroad.

"LiveNewsCameras.com brings together the resources of journalists around the world and makes live streaming video easy to find and use on your computer," says the site in its 'About' section.

The site's sources are mostly US-based so far, but it aims to gain international reach, already including feeds from broadcasters such as BBC World and Al Jazeera.

The site's editors are currently seeking newspapers sites that stream live video to link back to them on LiveNewsCameras.

For more information, you can also view a video by G4 here.

If you would be interested in experimenting with this, feel free to get in touch with us or with them.

Source: LiveNewsCameras

Jeff Jarvis, Buzzmachine blogger, writes about the new ecosystem of news: a press-sphere, in which the press may be involved, but "any of many sources can, thanks to links, add up a story and to fulfilling the need or desire for news and information." Newspapers aren't just news anymore, according to Jarvis, they are more complex with endless sources and handlers.

People do not just receive their news directly from the press anymore; they may have found the news through their peers "who tell us it's news." The definition of news has changed as well, from a story with text and photos to incorporating background information, commentary that may add perspective, and data. "A story never begins and it never ends," writes Jarvis. "[The story] - in whatever medium -- is merely a blip on the line, a stage in a process, for that process continues after publication."

According to Jarvis, the public should replace news as the center of the press-sphere, surrounded by all news sources: the press, peers, non-press media  (e.g., Jon Stewart), search, links, original sources, companies, the government. "It's all information and we curate it and interact with it with the tools available," writes Jarvis. Even readers themselves can be sources now.

One of the commenters on Jarvis' blog didn't agree with "the idea that we can continue to maintain a story alive indefinitely when in fact the story has died or it is no longer relevant..." According to the reader, "Even if [it] was relevant, we would be looking from 20/20 hindsight, which by definition, would put the story in historical context and not within the journalistic purview."

The newsroom has already evolved with the emergence of online. "In print, the process leads to a product. Online, the process is the product," writes Jarvis. Thus, whereas newsrooms were arranged by sections (sports, business, etc) and job descriptions (reporter, editor, photographer, etc.), now there is a print newsdesk and online newsdesk. With the new model, Jarvis believes newsrooms should be organized around topics, tags, or stories "because the notion of a section is as out of date as the Dewey Decimal System." 

Other changes that Jarvis notes, in his own words,:
- The separation of content from presentation on web pages means that design, navigation, brand, and medium can change and are not necessarily controlled by an editor's design.
- Feeds also have an impact on -- and can reduce the value of -- packaging and prioritization (also known as editing).
- Live reports from witnesses also reduce the opportunity to package and edit.
- The ecology of links motivates us to do what we do best and link to the rest. It fosters collaboration. It changes the essential structure of a story (background or source material can be a link away).
- Links also turn our readers into our distributors.
- Links turn our readers into editors.
- Aggregation, curation, and peer links become our new newsstand.
- Search and SEO motivate us to create repositories of expertise (topic pages) and make news stories more permanent.
- Search reduces the power of the brand.
- We see ourselves not as owners of content or distribution but as members of networks.
- These networks can be about content, trust, interest, or advertising relationships or all of the above.

Jarvis concludes that "When we rethink this ecology of news, we'll be in a better position to plan for what's next."
 
Source: Buzzmachine.com through IFRA Executive News Service

On Wednesday, Tom Curley, president and CEO of Associated Press, spoke at the annual conference of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) and the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) and stated that "the news cooperative hasn't changed its fundamental mission, but must have a more flexible business model to meet the changing dynamic of the media industry."

In order to help struggling newspapers, AP has already offered price cuts for fees paid by members, expanding video and business coverage, and creating a digital archive database that members can search.

The AP also plans to re-price and re-package its news for its 1,500 daily U.S. newspapers, which would entail a core service for all national, state, and international breaking news with separate add-ons of premium service, instead of offering news feeds defined largely by the volume of news delivered.

Many newspapers are unreceptive to this plan due to the lack of specifics, but Curley assures that more details will be available in July.

"I can't sit here today and tell you that we at The Boston Globe are going to save any money from this program because I quite frankly have a hard time understanding the program,"  Martin Baron, editor of The Boston Globe, said.

David Shribman, vice president and executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, remarked that his paper is getting too many enterprise stories from the AP and not enough of the day-to-day coverage it needs. "I think you vastly underestimate the resentment and anger in this room over the AP's policy," he said.

Curley said "the company is trying to respond to member needs and wants to hear from member newspapers about AP services."

Another service AP is adopting, in addition to tracking service Attributor, used to monitor content, is iCopyright, a copyright protection service, for online users of its content.
 
Every AP-hosted story will include links to the iCopyright service, which will allow AP content users to email content, request copies, purchase photos or publish to their own websites. It will also "guide users through the appropriate licensing arrangement or payment process for aggregating content."

The system will faciliate monitoring copyright compliance and identifying pirated and misappropriated stories, according to Bruce Glover, AP deputy director of business development.

Mike O'Donnell, founder and CEO of iCopyright, encourages news sites to add the links to AP stories on their own websites "to promote an industry-wide standard for online copyright protection."

Source: Associated Press through IFRA Executive News Service, Journalism.co.uk (photo)

UK journalism blogger Paul Bradshaw offers some tips for busy reporters and editors on how to use some Web-based tools such as RSS feeds and social media to help them along the basic newsgathering process.

According to him, why go searching for news on the Web and Google when one can let that news come to you instead?

Among his tips:

- subscribe to RSS feeds for any online sources in your area of coverage: you'll get constantly updated feeds, from a multitude of sources, on a one-stop page.
- Technorati, the blog search engine, gives the possibility of subscribing to feeds organized by tag: an easy way for a motoring journalist to keep up to date with the blogosphere's coverage of 'Ford', 'V8s' and more.
- Twitter offers features including Twitterlocal and Tweetscan, which enable users to subscribe to feeds based on location and keywords, allowing journalists to set up feeds in advance for scheduled events.
- Subscribe to bookmarking sites such as Delicious and the like: "Bookmarking sites like Delicious are a goldmine of information and leads," says Bradshaw.
- Use social networks and their feeds: "Journalism is all about contacts. Social networks are a fantastic way of finding and managing them," writes Bradshaw.
- Sign up for some Google alerts: in addition to automatically providing items that may have gone unnoticed, Google always displays 'similar' results.

While journalists should by all means learn how to take advantage of these easy-to-use Web resources, they shouldn't do so at the expense of traditional reflexes: getting directly in touch with sources and verifying the accuracy of content on their own.

Source: journalism.co.uk through IFRA Executive News Service

Conventional wisdom can be misleading for online editors tackling newspaper website design. Traditional website design of UK papers, with lots of white space, neat boxes and strong page formation may not be the most profitable.

Most conventional news sites are designed with consideration that users don’t like to scroll. Thus most content is crammed intop the top 480 pixels of the screen. 24Sata in Croatia has even come up with a ‘no-scroll’ homepage design, which fits everything on one screen – and has proved successful so far.

By contrast, Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet’s opted for a website design with extremely long and narrow pages, that are “loaded with garish boxes and stories with enormous headlines stacked on top of each other,” reported the Press Gazette.

The site’s strategy is to make every page a front page, by including the front page at the bottom of every story page. Although seemingly unpleasant for users, this design becomes increasingly important as users directly come to stories through search engines and RSS feeds.

“Every single design rule that you have ever been taught has been broken here, but they are making more money than you will ever dream of,” said Mark Comerford, a new media lecturer at the University of Stockholm, speaking to regional newspaper online editors in the UK.

And yet Aftonbladet.se is Sweden’s second-largest site after MSN, with 3.5 million unique users. Its parent company, Schibsted, is arguably one of the world’s most successful newspapers groups in its transition to digital publishing.

The main point here isn’t that online editors should delve into Aftonbladet-style design, or that a no-scroll homepage is more user-friendly. But they should rid themselves of preconceptions, said Comerford:

“If there are other sites that violate everything that you would consider the rules of good design, and yet they work, then what can you learn from that?”

Source: Press Gazette

Several newspaper analysts have recently opined about the approach newspapers should adopt to take advantage of Facebook. Here’s a list of ideas for apps that can attract the crowd, without losing sense of newspapers’ mission.