Poynter's Amy Gahran points newsroom staffs to some new software that could be beneficial when working on the web for journalists, editors and readers.

Organization: In an article discussing linkrot, which occurs when a hyperlink made in an article no longer works, Gahran says she avoids the problem by using Furl, "a social bookmarking tool that saves a private copy of any page you bookmark there to create your own private, permanent, downloadable, and searchable library."

Having experimented with it today, I already have a feeling Furl is going to make my life, and that of journalists doing research, easier. Instead of saving URL addresses in various folders on a desktop, users can simply click on the Furl bookmark in their browser and voila! it's saved. You can name and categorize your saved links so that they are easily findable in your library, perfect for doing research. Perhaps best of all, you can share your library with others which will help when collaborating on projects.

Mouse-over knowledge: Another tool praised by Gahran is described at Online Journalism Review. It's called Trilliscience and it subtly integrates information in any word within a text. For example, if you are reading an article online and a name pops up with which you aren't familiar, a Trilliscience-powered page would allow you to run your mouse over the word at which time a little window would pop up with an explanation which could also include links.

This has already been tried to some degree in the past but Trilliscience could come out on top. As of now, it is only used for instant messaging and connects to information from Wikipedia, which is where the definition of a word comes from when the reader mouses over.

Ray Grieselhuber at OJR argues that Trilliscience could be useful in keeping readers on a newspaper's website instead of the reader Googling a name she comes across with which she might not be familiar. This is useful for publishers wanting readers to scan as many ads as possible.

However, a large window that emerges when mousing-over a word could be somewhat annoying to the reader. Although it does avoid loading another page, with rapidly increasing connection speeds, going to another page to read background information isn't all that troubling. What may be useful is a small window with a few words giving vital information such as the subject's position and nationality and providing a link to deeper information if the reader feels inclined.

One thing is certain, when considering the multitude of names, organizations, countries, etc. that the news industry covers, background information is very important for the reader (as we've mentioned on this blog before). By giving the reader the option between a quick background check through a mouse-over and a detailed history of a story's subject through a hyperlink, newspapers will give the reader a complete newsreading experience that is sure to be rewarded with frequent returns to the site.

Sources: Poynter (Furl, Trilliscience), Online Journalism Review