Linking gets more specific at the New York Times: link to an individual paragraph or sentence December 7, 2010
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentUsers can now link to and highlight individual sentences and paragraphs in stories on the New York Times site, notes TNW Media:
“While it could be a tad complicated for an average reader, it’s a great tool for writers and bloggers who frequently link to NYTimes stories.
[...]
To simplify things, if you hit your shift key twice on a Times story, small icons appear next to every paragraph. Click on one of them and it’ll place the paragraph linked URL up in the address bar of your browser.
Using the Times’ new hyperlinking system might mean a little more work for the linker, but I like how it adds a new layer of specificity and clarify to a linked post. And it is definitely cool to see that the hyperlink is still evolving.”
Expensive, long-form journalism can be a hit online September 17, 2010
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentSimplistic preductions about journalism and the internet are futile, and there’s evidence that good quality (more expensive), long-form writing attracts more hits online, says John Naughton in The Observer:
‘”Ah, yes,” say the sceptics, “but where’s the business model to support such expensive writing?” And here’s an interesting development. The online magazine Slate decided to allocate resources to encourage some journalists to produce long, long pieces – for example Tim Noah’s analysis of why there hasn’t been another 9/11-type attack. These pieces have attracted astonishing levels of reader attention, with page views in the 3-4 million range. And the editor of the New York Times magazine has made the same discovery. “Contrary to conventional wisdom,” he says, “it’s our longest pieces that attract the most online traffic.”‘
Article: Good journalism will thrive, whatever the format | Technology | The Observer
Easy solutions to web production’s most common problems May 21, 2010
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentA great problem-solving round-up by Mark Luckie of 10,000 Words:
“In my role as multimedia producer for California Watch and in other newsrooms where I’ve worked, I am frequently approached by reporters to help them with web-related issues. Often it’s how to post content on the web, how to edit something, or how to do something I’ve never heard of (which I later google).
Here are some of the most common question I’m asked — and if you are a web producer, you are too — and the answers to those questions.”
Three fallacies of newspaper thinking (and how paywalls cracked…) May 21, 2010
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentThree fallacies of newspapers’ assumptions about online content, highlighted by a discussion of paywalls etc, summarised by William Owen of Made by Many:
1) the internet is free because of a mix of habit and a spurious moral right, and that if you can change habits and challenge morality we’ll go back to paying for content.
2) a newspaper’s competition is other newspapers.
3) nothing else changes, content is still just the end product of the publishing process.
How news organisations are using Google Wave to engage their audience January 19, 2010
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentThe Chicago Tribune’s RedEye has a live public Wave on news every weekday morning. Hilary Fosdal writes:
“With each Daily Wave, RedEye connects with their readers and builds a sense of community. The RedEye is also demonstrating that is sees itself as more than a newspaper and more than a blog by embracing innovative technology that encourages a continuous and dynamic discussion about the news.
Robert Quigley, social media editor of the Austin American-Statesman has also held public waves with his readers.
“The challenge right now is keeping public waves on topic. If they get more than 50 blips discussion grinds to a halt […] for Google Wave to work during a news event, there needs to be the ability to moderate and/or easily spin something into another wave and link to it in the first wave to keep it on topic.” ”
SEO basics can help, but great content — and telling people — is what really counts October 18, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentGreat post on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) by Derek Powazek (who ought to know): "If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned. […] The problem with SEO is that the good advice is obvious, the rest doesn’t work, and it’s poisoning the web.
[…] the One True Way to get a lot of traffic on the web. It’s pretty simple, and I’m going to give it to you here, for free: Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again.
That’s it. Make something you believe in. Make it beautiful, confident, and real. Sweat every detail. If it’s not getting traffic, maybe it wasn’t good enough. Try again.
Then tell people about it. Start with your friends. Send them a personal note – not an automated blast from a spam cannon. Post it to your Twitter feed, email list, personal blog.
[…] It’ll take time. A lot of time. But it works. And it’s the only thing that does."
When the lack of comments damages your news brand October 6, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentPaul Bradshaw unpacks an example from the BBC news website, concluding:
"What the discussion around the BBC Education news piece highlights is the risk to a news brand in not publishing comments (as is the case – for now – on most BBC News reports. Indeed, I would add that not having bylines to all reports or contact emails makes the organisation look even more opaque.)
Of course having comments on the story would have allowed this discussion to take place in public, from the start, and provide readers of the article with some critical context, turning a single-source ‘He Said’ article into a ‘He Said-She Said’ piece at the very least. That’s a technical issue that is being addressed, but in the meantime the BBC brand suffers."
Cervical cancer vaccine, online news, Google and SEO October 2, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : Journalism, SEO, linking, science , add a commentSEO expert Malcolm Coles kicked off an interesting experiment yesterday, to shift the emphasis in Google’s search results away from “negative and inaccurate information” (eg some news stories) linking a girl’s death to the cervical cancer vaccine and towards NHS pages about the vaccine.
More by Malcolm here about the tendency of some news stories to suggest (or make) a connection between the death and the vaccine.
He has been encouraging bloggers and others to publish web links, with relevant linked text, to influence Google’s search results, such as cervical cancer jab, cervical cancer vaccine, and cervical cancer vaccine Q&A.
So far, the NHS seems to have bought ’sponsored links’ against some search key words, but I don’t see any of the NHS sites in the first page of Google’s search results for “cervical cancer jab”, which continues to be dominated by news stories.
Finding a niche: do papers need to focus better on what they do well? September 27, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentJim Brady, web consultant to Guardian America: “You take most newspapers in the U.S., there are a couple things they’re really, really good at, better at probably than anybody else. And then there are a long list of things they’re just no better at—especially if you look at soft sections […]
I don’t think that producing a paper that’s great at 30 percent of the subjects it covers and OK at the other 70 percent really has much of a future on the Web, because it’s just too hard to compete. We’re in this social media world now where if I’m on Twitter or I’m on Facebook and someone sends me an article, three pieces of information come with that: what friend of mine sent me the article, what the headline says, and who produced the article. And I would argue that who produced the article is by far the least important of the three.”
UK news sites see 54% increase in hits from USA September 20, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentRobin Goad of Hitwise sets out the figures, noting that the Drudge Report is the second-largest source, sandwiched by Google Search (top) and Google News (third):
“UK Internet visits to News and Media websites grew by 8% last year, but British news sites aren’t just being successful at home. As the chart below illustrates, US Internet visits to UK News and Media websites have increased by 54% over the last 12 months.
BBC News ranked as the 21st most visited News and Media website in US during August, while the Daily Mail was 47th and the BBC Homepage 65th. Other British sites in the US News and Media top 200 last month included: the Telegraph (71st), the FT (115th), The Sun (117th), Times Online (131st) and the Guardian (134th).
The growth of British news sites is somewhat slower in Australia, but then they are starting from a larger base; BBC News ranked 13th in the Australian News and Media category last month, for example, while the corporation’s homepage was 18th.”