Journalistic.co.uk - the UK digital journalism blog

Here’s a thought on how newspapers can develop a better online relationship with their readers - put a unique access code number in the paper.

That’s right, somewhere in the paper, could be on the first page, or last page, would be a unique code number which people have to enter to get full access to the online version of the paper.

Many newspapers are facing declining sales as people are migrating to the web to get their news and all newspaper groups are looking at ways to maintain loyalty with readers.

Some use lotto games and free CDs as well as TV listings supplements, but what about connecting your readers online?

Newspapers can print unique codes for lotto games, so why not in the actual newspaper?

Then if someone wants to gain access to the newspaper website, they have to enter the access code. It could be access for a day, or a week. Without the access code, the reader gets limited access and is encourage to then buy that day’s newspaper to get it.

The code can then be assigned to a specific user. Of course, some people may share the access code, but there again, people in the home or office will share a newspaper.

For newspapers it can be a good way for them to start to understand better how people read the papers and use their website.

The industry is about trying good ideas, maybe they will consider this one.

Simon Waldman is director of digital publishing at Guardian Newspapers, home of course to The Guardian.

In an email interview with Journalistic.co.uk, Waldman offers is views on how the digital media industry is evolving and the importance of blogs.

What do you enjoy about working in the digital media industry?

The fact that even now, I find that at least once a month I stumble across something that completely blows my mind and makes me change the way I see things.

Digital media or new media? What is your take on this, or is it just a discussion of semantics?

Well - I like a bit of both.

Do you belong to a trade union? If you do, why, if you don’t why not?

I was a member of the NUJ - but I stopped being a journalist four years ago and made the move into commercial management, where there is no union to protect you.

What was your first break into journalism? And how did you end up where you are today?

I landed a job on Shoe and Leather News as a trainee reporter and feature writer. After that glamorous introduction to journalism, I moved aroudn the trade press until I became deputy editor of Media Week in 1993, and then went freelance. At around the same time, I fell in love with the net, and arrived at the Guardian to do three days a week on some of their early internet ventures.

What skills do you think are essential for the “digital” journalist?

In terms of writing/ reporting/ subbing - the same as for any journalist. In terms of editing: you need to have a pretty clear understanding of how people are actually going to use your site - it’s very different to a newspaper or a magazine or a radio programme: and decisions about what goes where, and when should be made accordingly. In addition to this, the fact that you can see exactly what people are and aren’t looking at adds a whole new dimension to editing.

Is the future “multi-skilled” journalists where they work across all media (TV, radio, print, online, emerging) or will there be room for those who specialise in just one area eg: just reporting, just working on radio. What is your take on this?

I’m not really close enough to the editorial coal-face to make a call on this.

What is next for The Guardian website. Any new site launches or relaunches?

Oh, we’re always working on something exciting. But nothing to report on at the moment.

How popular have the subscriptions been to the “no advertising” version of The Guardian online?

The take up has been, shall we say, quite restrained. However, the importance of this offer is that it’s there if people want it. We make a huge amount of content freely available on our site every day. Advertising is our main source of revenue, and while we make substantial efforts to be sure that it doesn’t interrupt with the users experience, there will always be some users who feel it does: this service is to allow them to experience our site, free of advertising for a very reasonable sum.

How important do you think blogs will be?

Blogs are already important: for three reasons.

- The development of ‘Power’ or ‘Alpha’ bloggers who have become critical gateways for millions of people in search of news and information on the net.

- The impact on Google that millions of bloggers adding millions of links to the net every day is having.

- The way they allow for remarkable aggregation tools such as Technorati, Blogdex and Daypop to work.

All three of these factors will become more important over the next few years. The point is that blogs are a critical part of the fabric of the net.

Which 3 websites do you find most essential to use on a regular basis?

Only three? Ignoring obvious calls such as Google/ Yell/ Multimap etc..among my regulars…

Technorati.com
Paidcontent.org
Blogdex.net

Oh - and most useful of all: my newsreader - either FeedDemon or NetNewsWire.

Netimperative is reporting that the internet is starting to get as much attention over Xmas as TV does. I guess with all the repeats on TV over the festive break, people are turning to the web for the sheer diversity of content out there.

Netimperative writes:

The Internet has reached the status of the TV during Christmas, becoming a staple of the holiday season, if new figures are anything to go by.

If like me you need to be able to crop, cut and manipulate images on a regular basis but don’t need a high end complex software package to do it with, Adobe’s Photoshop Elements has always proven to be a popular choice.

Having used both version 1 and 2 for several years, Adobe has now released version, 3.

Like previous versions, Photoshop Elements 3 makes it easy to take an image and work with it without making the process too complicated or cumbersome.

Elements is based on its popular Photoshop, a tool used by professionals and with Elements, Adobe has taken the essential features of Photoshop and made it easy for everyday use.

Pro users will probably find that Elements doesn’t offer everything they need, but for journalists working on the web and needing to manipulate images, Elements is the ideal software package to use.

It really is simple as taking an image off your hard drive or digital camera, cropping it as needed and applying some of the inbuilt tools to make it work the way you need.

Want to compress the image so that it doesn’t use much space? That’s easy through a feature called “Save For Web” and you can take a large size image and reduce it to a reasonable size.

Need to crop an image to a certain height and width? Again, it’s easy just enter the size and crop where you need to?

And what about making the image look good? Well, the Quick Fix feature will calculate how best to display your image and do it automatically.

Of course, you have complete freedom to work with images anyway you want. But the automated tools do allow many complicated processes be done easily and quickly.

For journalists blogging and working on the web, Photoshop Elements 3 is great software to complement the writing you do.

It offers everything you need when working with photos.

Expect to pay around £70.

Weekly trade publication New Media Age which covers the digital media industry has re-activated its NMA.co.uk domain as a dedicated site.

For several years, New Media Age published by Centaur, had an online presence via the NewMedia Zero site, but now it is using its original domain. The previous NewMediaZero domain is now re-directing to NMA.co.uk.

“Three years after the launch of newmediazero, the online world has moved on. NMA.co.uk is intended to meet the changed needs of you, our readers and subscribers, with greater focus, improved navigation and more up-to-date content,” writes NMA editor Michael Nutley on the site’s homepage.

The new look NMA comes a month after rival online daily trade publication Netimperative re-vamped its site and also appointed former NMA editor Mike Butcher as editor.

Well, it is now more than 36 hours since the British Comedy Awards took place and there is still no update on the official site as to who won what.

Come on, what is up with those who put together that site? You can’t really expect to put on a big event (and it was a great event too) and then not update the site with the winners.

Or maybe you can?

For the last 18 months I’ve been using BT Yahoo as my broadband provider and generally been happy with the service. It works well and is reliable.

But over the last month, I’ve been pondering the question, “Am I paying too much?”. As I’m outside of the minimum one year contract, I thought it would be a good time to consider my options.

BT Yahoo charges me £26.99 a month for a 512k connection, the speed of which is generally fine for my daily use. Through other providers, a similar service can cost as little as £20 a month. So I’m paying an extra of £7 a month.

I decided to call BT Yahoo and find what they could do if they wanted me to stay. Well, without too much prompting there were two offers.

1. Upgrade to the 1MB service for the same price
2. Keep the existing 512k service and pay a reduced price of £20.25 a month for the next four months and then

I decided on offer 2 and so from my next billing date, I will get the service for £20.25. I was also told to call back again before the end of the four months and see what new offer would be available.

“It’s a fast moving market and we want customers to stay with us, so we will look at what we can do to keep you,” said the very helpful BT Yahoo service agent.

Indeed, it is a fast moving market and given the competition out there, it’s important to not only shop around for the best deal to meet your needs, but also generally check the offer you are getting and if you are not happy with the cost, see what your provider can do.

BT Yahoo have offered a deal that will keep me with them - well, atleast until someone dramatically undercuts them and offers a good level of service!

Having viewed the British Comedy Awards on ITV1 last night, I wanted to double check something about it.

So I decided to visit the main ITV website this morning and guess what, there was nothing on its own site linking to more information about the awards.

So the next thing I did was visit BritishComedyAwards.co.uk and guess what? Even though I saw this linked to on various news sites, that domain name was suspended as it wasn’t renewed when it should have been in November.

So I tried entering .com instead of .co.uk at the end of BritishComedyAwards and finally got to the official site.

But, nearly 12 hours after the awards finished and the winners were announced there are no details of who won what.

Given that it was a major show on ITV and even had an ITV2 programme as well, I would have thought there would be some links on the main ITV site to find out more about the awards. All I managed to find was via the ITV News areas a story about the night with one photo.

Over at the BBC, there was atleast a selection of photos from the night. But alas, like the Scotland TV site, they were linking to the address of the non-working BritishComedyAwards.co.uk site.

So between ITV and those who made the show, this was a really poor showing on the web.

Don’t people realise that if you put on a major event that people are interested in, you need to update it? And if you don’t update it, what sort of image are you giving out?

You wouldn’t promote the TV show and then halfway through it, then stop broadcasting? But that’s the way it looks on what has happened on the web.

You put on a great show on the telly ITV, but you really need to do much better with the web.

Anyone else notice there is an error with the Number 10 website’s RSS feed which is linked on this page.

The link to the feed is given as:
http://www.number-10.gov.uk/rss/rss.asp

But shows this error message:

The XML page cannot be displayed
Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later.

——————————————————————————–

An invalid character was found in text content. Error processing resource ‘http://www.number-10.gov.uk/rss/rss.asp’. Line …

Tue, 21 Dec 2004 10:00 UT http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page6820.asp

And while I am ranting:

How up to the date is Mr Blair’s site really? As of 9am this morning despite it being reported everywhere that he is in Israel, there is no “official” word that he is in Israel. Surely this is not a news blackout as the BBC and everyone is also showing video of him meeting with Israeli PM Ariel Sharon.

Come on Number 10 update yourself better and more importantly get the RSS feed working.

Update: After 10am Number 10 referenced Mr Blair being in Israel and said a transcript of the PM’s press conference with Ariel Sharon would be going up later. It wasn’t there at 2pm but now at 5.30pm it is here. Why take more than four hours to offer a transcription? Also, how about putting some time stamps on content going up on the site so we know when it was last updated?

Update 29 December 2004: Number 10 RSS feed is now working again.

Looks like Americans prefer getting their news from the BBC.

According to a BBC World Service survey, the international bbcnews.com site is trusted more than US news sources.

Results from the survey (alas the BBC didn’t reveal how many people took part, so the percentages could be based on 100 people, or 1000 or even 10!)

84% rated the BBC “as a company with a history of providing great news coverage”
61% “trust the BBC’s world news coverage over that of US owned media”
67% believe “the BBC provides better coverage than US news services”

“This survey revealed that bbcnews.com is a popular and much admired site in the world’s most competitive online market,” said Alan Booth, Controller, Marketing, Communications and Audiences, BBC World Service. “It is the first time that we have surveyed US online news users, and the results are very encouraging.”

Memo to BBC World Service: Next time you do a survey, please give out more details on the numbers who took part in the survey and also the time period when it took place.

22 December 2004 update: Lala Najafova, international publicist for BBC World Service emails me some extra info. “A total of 776 people took part in the survey which was conducted in October-November. ” - thanks Lala for that!

A website devoted to discussing all aspects of virtual communities and the impact of them has just been launched.

Community Herald offers coverage across a number of areas including technology, politics and culture.

It’s an interesting online project and should over time develop into a useful resource especially for those who are interested in the connection between communities and the online world.

Among those writing for the site are The Guardian’s Jack Schofield and technology journalists including Guy Clapperton, Wendy Grossman and Davey Winder.

“The purpose of the Community Herald is to provide a unique online destination where people can read, discuss and debate a wide range of issues relating to online communities,” said editor Andrew Smith. “We’re confident that the publication will stimulate high calibre debate and interest from a highly thoughtful and passionate readership.”

The BBC has announced how it plans to refocus its online activities which will see a number of sites being cut or scaled back with other areas being expanded.

Among those being cut are the US sports section of bbc.co.uk/sport and local history site bbc.co.uk/legacies.

Its cult site at bbc.co.uk/cult will also be scaled back apart from the section on Doctor Who while bbc.co.uk/lifestyle will also have less investment in it.

The Where I Live local sites will stop publishing full listings but look to increase the amount of multi-media on them.

Around £6m will be saved which the Corporation says will be invested in other public services.

“This is all about focusing our investment so that we can best use our funding to reach and delight the largest audiences with the most distinctive and original content,” said Ashley Highfield, Director of New Media & Technology.

“It is about preparing ourselves for the broadband world. In order to free up the required funding we need to behave like Television and Radio.”

Highfield added: “It is our aspiration to reinvest this in pan-BBC new media projects that can build on our public values such as Creative Archive, interactive Media Player and iCan, as well as funding innovative interactive content formats commissioned from independent companies such as Jamie Kane and Taggers.”

According to Press Gazette, it looks like Cut, the weekly magazine for men is no more following publisher H Bauer’s decision to axe it.

The magazine, pardon the pun, never cut it as a serious threat to either Zoo or Nuts in the weekly men’s market despite its initial marketing push. MediaGuardian reported that is was selling as little as 10,000 an issue compared to the 200,000 plus that both Zoo and Nuts are reporting.

More akin to a lads version of The Week and pretty much a cut and pastre job without much unique content, Cut looked cheap and didn’t really have much to offer.

But things could have been different if Cut was a website or even a blog.

Last month, I wrote about H Bauer not even having a suitable domain name for the mag.

Guess they really never considered that a online approach might have worked.

The concept is simple, cut and paste the best bits from other publications and give it some spin.

That seems to work for many blogs and would have been perfect for Cut.

With everyone else reviewing Stephen Pollard’s biography of ex-home secretary David Blunkett, I thought it might be good to take a look at his blog.

Pollard is not new to the blogging world. His blog has an archive going back to 2001.

He even very kindly puts up a Site Meter to show how popular the blog is, or is not depending on how you look at the data. As of today, the blog is getting an average of 514 page views a day. Is that good, is that bad? I would have thought with the amount of publicity that the book is generating that it would be a bit more than that.

Pollard’s blog was designed by the Big Blog Company and offers a good mix of news and information from Pollard and covers the issues he is interested in - politics and society.

As well as material published in his newspaper columns, the blog also offers original material.

As blogs go this is a good and gives some extra insight into the biography he wrote of David Blunkett. Where it’s a let down is the sheer number of words on the page, just a little too wordy.

Most people tend to scan on screen and maybe print out to actually read. With a blog, or indeed any online publication it’s important to strike the right balance between what people may wish to read online or print out later.

While there are line breaks between paragraphs in entries, the blog does need some images to break up the text and make it easier on the eye to read. Also, Pollard needs to consider changing the colour scheme as the green background just doesn’t work.

And he might like to update his own biography. Pollard says of himself:

He is currently writing the biography of the British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, which will be published in the spring of 2005.

Stephen, your book came out earlier this week.

Apart from a few minor issues of colour scheme and text layout, Pollard’s blog offers a good perspective of what he is up to and provides the extra info you may want to know about the man behind the Blunkett book.

Looks like it has been a few weeks since my last website review.

Well, here’s a review of something close to home for me.

Wordpress

This is the website for the blogging software that powers Journalistic. Not only is it free, but the support offered by users on the Wordpress forums is excellent.

In the six weeks since I choose Wordpress over other blogging systems, I have been impressed by the quality of support offered from basic get up and running questions to more complex customisation.

Whether you are a Wordpress pro or just starting out on it, the forum respects all.

The forum is populated by volunteers offering mutual help and support in making the most of this amazing software. Wordpress is one of the easiest systems to use but also offers many enhanced features to make it a great way to blog and through the support forums you can begin to understand how to use more advanced features.

The Wordpress forum is a great resource and with users from all across the planet in different timezones, you can post a question, go to sleep and wake up next day with an answer.

What I like about the Wordpress forum: Offers everything you expect from a support forum with a great friendly community helping each other.

If you are looking for some help and advice on setting up your own blog, then the Big Blog Company is organising a series of events which are worth attending.

The company, which produces blogs for organisations and individuals is running special one hour bootcamps in London for journalists to introduce them to blogging.

There are three events this year on December 17, December 20 and December 21.

All events are first come, first served and are limited to a handful of people per session. So if you are interested, get in touch with them quickly.

Later in January, the Big Blog Company in association with Six Apart, the company behind the popular Movable Type blogging system will be hosting an evening all about blogs.

Thanks to Complete Tosh for the tip.

Earlier this year Google offered users of its Gmail service a staggering 1GB of space for its web-based email service as standard.

Not to be outdone, Yahoo said it would be upgrading people to 100MB as standard along with Microsoft saying it would also increase space as well for its Hotmail service.

Over the last couple of days, I’ve noticed my Yahoo account now has 250MB up from 100MB and my Hotmail account has been increased from a mere 2MB to 250MB.

Now the question is? Should we thank Google for that? Would Yahoo and Microsoft had increased the space being offered if it wasn’t for Google’s offering?

I must admit, even when I had 100MB with Yahoo, I found it hard to fill up beyond 5MB. Do I now really need 250MB? And will I ever get anywhere close to using the 1GB that is offered by Gmail?

With Yahoo and Microsoft increasing space, what impact does it have on their paid-for services. Sure, for $20 a year Hotmail will give me 2GB of space and not deactivate my account if it is not used for 30 days and Yahoo for $20 also offers 2GB of space and a whole of similar enhanced features.

Maybe they should offer a lower offering for $5 or $10 which offers the 250MB of space without the advertising. Yes, $20 is still a bargain given what is offered, but like those “all you can eat” sometimes you don’t really want all you can eat for one price.

People like me will be happy with the free service, but would be prepared to see some extras for an additional cost.

Maybe, for the $20 they could throw in some free texting. That would make it more of an appealing offer, as just offering the extra space doesn’t make it compelling enough.

Google set the new standard for web-based email, maybe they could be the ones who offer an enhanced paid-for service that people would consider paying for?

A blogger who has been writing about the US quiz show Jeopardy is facing legal action from show maker Sony.

Jason Kottke has been blogging about the show and released a leaked audio of one of the players taking part.

Sony got a bit annoyed and told he to remove it. Kottke followed the request and then put up a transcript of the recording on the same day that the Washington Post put its its transcript.

And then Sony told him to remove that, but didn’t pursue the Washington Post to remove its transcript.

Writing in his blog, Jay Allen sums it up pretty well:

Also strange since a well-known newspaper also printed the transcript on or about the same day that Jason did. And a TV station in Macon, Georgia aired the episode four days early. Apparently, you have to be part of the Big Media club and have access to a large legal staff if you want to play the game.

Jason got a scoop, he fed other blogs with his story and in turn got more people interested in the game show. Blogger gets story, story is published. But Sony doesn’t want to play fair. As Jay says it’s one rule for the big media owners and another for bloggers.

As a result of this, another blogger Jason Calacanis is calling fror a boycott of Sony products if the Japanese giant tries to take action against Kottke.

One to watch!

Thanks to MBites for the tip.

Scottish newspaper The Scotsman has begun an ambitious archive project that will see it put online all content from its newspaper since it was first published in 1817.

The first stage, 1817 to 1900 is now online and allows people to run a free search. If they find a result, they can subscribe to view the result.

Until January 2005, subscribers can benefit from an introductory offer for access to the service. Daily access to everything costs £5 while subscribing for a year is £109.95.

The next stage of development will see the archive extended to 1950 and then eventually to the present day.

“This fascinating window on Scotland’s history will be hugely useful and in some cases vital, to historians, genealogists and anyone interested in our past,” said John McGurk, editor of The Scotsman.

Like many people, my current Orange phone is out of contract so I decided it was time for an upgrade. Calling Orange, I asked what they could offer and now I have the amazing Sony Ericsson k700i for free on a one year contract at £25 a month which offers 500 minutes to any UK mobile network or landline.

Of course, it can make and receive calls but where it will come in very handy is being able to use it for shooting short videos.

One side of the phone has the calling features while flipping it over is the impressive camera for shooting both still images as well as video.

Already the likes of ITV News and local London news slot, London News Tonight are encouraging people to use their phones to shoot images and videos if they come across a story.

Journalists out and about can quickly and easily use the phone to take breaking images. While the quality is not like a £500 or even £10,000 piece of kit, it can be useful for for getting the initial scoop.

Even though it has a “night” option for shooting in poor lighting conditions, the phone works best where there is a reasonable amount of light. For daytime use it is good, but for real night use, it can be hit or miss.

The k700i comes with around 42mb of memory which based on my own testing can give up to 60 minutes of video.

Another useful feature of being able to shoot video with the phone is then transferring it direct to a computer for editing and uploading onto a website.

Short interviews can be done with the phone and then streamed.

Overall an impressive piece of kit and give it another six months or so and the next generation of phones with video features will take the quality up to another level.

If you are thinking of upgrading your phone, the k700i is an excellent choice as it is available on all networks - o2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone.

What I like: Being able to take videos quickly and easily. Works well as a phone and is tri-band meaning it can also be used in the USA. Bluetooth feature allows data to be transferred directly to my laptop computer.

What I don’t like: Initial setting of the phone had video option for only shooting nine seconds and was not obvious how to change that to maximum. While the phone has a battery bar to show how much power there is, it doesn’t show you the actual hours/minutes left of battery life. My previous phone, the Sony Ericsson t68 had this feature.