Agencies collaborate online for Copenhagen

An interesting story from Holdthefrontpage rounds off this week in online journalism news.

It reports how The Press Association has teamed up with ten other international news agencies to interact with the world during the UN Climate Change Conference.

The group has is using Facebook to bring news directly from the event, which runs from 7 to 18 December in Copenhagen, and has set up a page called 'The Climate Pool'.

Holdthefrontpage describes how the agencies hope that it will allow readers directly communicate with journalists covering the event, sparking a global conversation.

The other agencies involved are Agence France-Presse, ANP of the Netherlands, Associated Press, APA of Austria, APcom of Italy, Canadian Press, dpa of Germany, Kyodo of Japan, Lusa of Portugal and RIA of Russia.

According to the report the Facebook page will feature a blog format, providing a behind-the-scenes view of the conference, and link out to coverage of the talks from the agencies and the media outlets they serve.

It will be produced in English and incorporate content from the participating agencies, along with links to coverage from around the world.

The group will also use Twitter to attract followers.

PA's head of digital development Chris McCormack told HTFP: "Everyone is wondering whether there are new opportunities for news and information flow across social networks, and that's what we are exploring with this blog and fan page.

"Social networks are where the digital conversation is, so that's where we need to be but we are also counting on the Facebook fan page to direct a highly engaged global audience to the best news stories and analysis among our UK media customers."

Can Google Wave transform journalism?

A report on Mashable has taken an in-depth look at the impact that Google Wave is having on journalism.

The real-time wiki collaboration platform is still in its preview phase and can be used by invite only, but already some media companies are using the tool for community building, real-time discussion, crowd-sourcing, collaboration both inside and outside the newsroom and for cross publishing content, according to the report.

What Google Wave has done is to have pulled together the component Google applications that people use and allow them to converge. Users can share photos, embed videos, and add in other apps such as Google Maps and Google Calendar to create customized blocks of user-editable content.

The report has plenty of examples of how journalists in the US are using the tool in just these ways. The Chicago Tribune’s RedEye blog, for instance, now has a daily “wave” during which readers give feedback and discuss the cover story of the day.

Redeye’s web editor Stephanie Yiu told Mashable: “It’s a lot more live than Twitter because it’s like you can see people typing and everybody gets to know each other.

“It’s really about connecting with our readers on a new platform. We’re learning with our readers and moving forward together.”

Meanwhile, Andrew Nystrom, senior producer of social media and emerging platforms for the Los Angeles Times described how his own recent experiments highlighted the potential that Google Wave has for crowd-sourcing.

He said: “That experiment was definitely an eye-opener. My understanding of Wave has always been that it’s a valuable tool for small-team collaboration. So to see it succeed as a larger-scale crowdsourcing tool was unexpected to say the least.

“People quickly swarmed the wave and provided a ton of really smart insights. Things we had never thought of.”

(Via Martin Stabe)

Journalists Coach Contributors at `News Cafe'

A hyperlocal news project in the Czech Republic, built around Starbucks-style "news cafes" staffed by journalists, appears to be working, Larry Kilman reports for the World Association of Newspapers' Shaping the Future of Newspapers blog.

Roman Gallo, CEO of project sponsor PPF Media, told the 2015 Newsroom Conference that 13 weeks after launch in four Czech regions, circulation of the company's paid-for weeklies is growing, as is web traffic. The cafes are quickly becoming a centre of community life, with meetings, concerts, dance lessons and other events organised for local residents.

Editorial staff sit in the middle of the cafes, without walls or doors, allowing regular interaction with local residents. Gallo said half the newspapers' new subscriptions come from people who come in for coffee and conversation.

"The readers can go there and be in contact," he said. "For the editorial team, they're much more open to talk to people, to understand the problems of the people in the region."

If the success continues, the company expects a year-long nationwide rollout of 220 weeklies, 89 news cafes and 700 websites.

About a third of the content for the newspapers is provided by local people - fishermen, firemen, mothers with young children and so on. But none of it goes into the paper or websites without input from a journalist, called a "community manager." A central editor oversees all publications.

"This is a total change for journalists," said Gallo. "We changed the job - they're trainers, coaches -- they work with the communities."

He said the key is to provide "unique content, which you can't find anywhere else, and it has to be credible content. That's the model that worked for newspapers for 100 years, and I have no doubt it will work for another 100 years."

Awards To Honour Breaking News

The finalists for the Online Journalism Awards have been announced and a total of ten sites have been nominated for breaking news coverage.

Award nominees compete in categories with websites of a similar size and this year sees three titles up for the breaking news prize for a small site.

They are: The Daily Astorian for coverage of the Gearhart Plane Crash; The Desert Sun for the Desert Hot Springs Gang Sweep; Pressconnects.com/Press & Sun-Bulletin for the Massacre on Front Street.



In the medium site category, the shortlist of four includes LasVegasSun.com for coverage of a snowstorm and the Dallas Morning News for its breaking news reports on the collapse of an American football training stadium.



Finally, the nominees in the large site category for breaking news are: The BBC for the Mumbai terrorist attacks; the New York Times for the plane crash on the Hudson river; chron.com for Hurricane Ike.



Run by the Online News Association, the awards also honour investigative journalism, multimedia, blogging, video journalism and general excellence – the full shortlist is available to view in the press release.

“We were regularly awed, inspired and delighted by the quality and innovation evident online today,” said Anthony Moor, co-chair of the awards committee.

The winners will be announced in October at the 2009 ONA Conference.

Echo Readers Create Unique Gallery

Life in Dorset is captured by the impressive collection of photos posted in response to an appeal from the Daily Echo.

The Bournemouth newspaper is encouraging readers to contribute to its Flickr group - A Dorset Year - as part of its aim to create a gallery showing a year in the life of the county and its residents.

All the photos are also published on the Daily Echo website and selected pictures feature in the newspaper.



Digital project co-ordinator Sam Shepherd told HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk that the gallery represents the newspaper’s efforts to interact with people in the area.

“There are so many people out there on the patch using Flickr so it was a way of getting them to engage with us,” said Shepherd.

So far, the group has attracted over 1,000 photos to its photostream and has more than 150 members.

Hull Paper Offers Live Match Reports

A Northcliffe newspaper is on the ball with its football coverage offering live and interactive match reports.

Fans can follow every minute of Hull City’s Premier League season thanks to a new match day service on sporthull.co.uk, reports HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk.

Using software from CoveritLive, the Big Match Live coverage is available in real-time during games and can be replayed in full after the final whistle.

The live blog also encourages comments from City fans, which then appear alongside posts from journalists at the Hull Daily Mail.



This season has seen sporthull.co.uk introduce a number of other new features, including an aggregation service providing links to Hull City coverage elsewhere on the Web.

“All of these new features enhance the service we give to web users and further differentiate our digital offering from our in-depth and analytical sports coverage in the paper,” said John Meehan, editor at the Hull Daily Mail.

He added: “We will also use the sports sites to promote our print-only sports content.”

Northcliffe has also introduced a new look and new features at three of its other sports sites - sportgrimsby.co.uk, sportscunny.co.uk and sportsecho.co.uk.

EveryBlock Makes Code Available

Hyperlocal news and info site EveryBlock has released its source code online.

This means thousands of news websites around the world can now make use of the technology to power their own location-based news services.

It is this code which has enabled EveryBlock (launched in January 2008) to provide a hyperlocal news and info service for some 15 cities across the US.

Visitors can search for news by postcode or area and can get access to civic records as well as breaking news stories.

The company also has a number of partnership deals with news groups, including the New York Times.

Announcing the release of the code on their blog, the EveryBlock founders said: “We hope this extensive code base helps spark lots of great work.”

Find out more on the Editors Weblog.

[HT – Martin Stabe]

Users Decide Blog’s Top Stories

Users are in control of a city blog as they contribute the content and vote on it to create the homepage.

New York-based bloggers submit their posts to NYC.is, where visitors can then rate articles to promote them to the homepage.

Links to the most popular articles are distributed via email and social media sites such as Twitter.

According to NYC.is, “when you decide what’s on the front page, local news stops being boring”.

Site founder Susannah Vila told Editor & Publisher that the recommendation element makes her blog stand out in the crowd.

“The idea of democratising local media is the crux of the project.

“If it were not for the front page/upcoming design, the site would not be different enough from other projects in this space to make it worthwhile.”

Twittering Reporter Earns Exclusive

A journalist has stumbled upon an exclusive story thanks to a bunch of tweets exchanged with a contact.

Journalism.co.uk reports that the Edinburgh Evening News reporter had initially approached a fellow Twitterer to find out more about their involvement in the forthcoming festival.

However, causal mention of a body discovered in their block of flats led Victoria Raimes to follow up the lead and write a front-page exclusive on the incident.

Raimes revealed that the microblogging service has become a valuable story-finding tool since she joined the newspaper.

“Each week I pick up a page lead from Twitter ... I would encourage every regional journalist to use it,” she said.

Raimes, who has made contacts via her own account and the Twitter feed of the Evening News, also noted that the website enables journalists to get feedback on their work.

Attracting Users With Social Media

How news sites attract audiences via social media is the subject of a presentation from net consultant Martin Belam.

Belam, who is information architect for the Guardian’s web development team, presented his findings at last month’s International Social Media Summit.

Among the social media tools and sites discussed were social bookmarking and recommendation sites, blogs and Twitter.

Belam has made his presentation available on Slideshare (see below) and as a six-part series of posts on his currybetdotnet blog.

How major publishers are using social media to drive traffic

View more documents from Martin Belam.

Five Lessons From Hyperlocal Site ‘Death’

The managing editor of a defunct hyperlocal news site is giving others advice on how to avoid a similar fate.

Dr Michelle Ferrier was one of the key figures behind MyTopiaCafe.com, a community news website from the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

Beset by problems during its two-year existence, the site closed last week and Dr Ferrier has now passed on the benefit of her hyperlocal experience via Poynter Online.



Here are the five factors that she believes contributed to the site’s demise, and the lessons that can be learned from each:

1 – Lack of Tech Support

“We did not have access to the video technologies, programmers and support on the content and technology sides that could have helped demonstrate the functions we were having our users adopt.”

The Lesson:

“Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Build a team that includes the content folks and the technologists.”

2 – Size Matters

“The borrowed model was too big for a hyperlocal community.”

The Lesson:

“Don't try to chew more than you can swallow. Start operations in smaller geographic footprints or niches and grow the operations and technological capabilities as you gain revenue.”

3 – The Long Haul

Dr Ferrier writes that “...reaching that tipping point of audience and user contributions takes time and evangelising and training and people, not just technology”.

The Lesson:

“Consider the project an experiment in technologies and in developing new capabilities - not an immediate cash cow.”

4 – Learn to sell Online

“The newspaper advertising management didn’t know how to sell this ‘online community thing’ as a part of the media mix without cannibalising its cash cow.”

The Lesson:

“If you don’t have a sales force that knows how to sell your product, find them or train them - quickly.”

5 – Work With Print

“We kept delaying the rollout of a print component and struggled to integrate the content into existing print products.

“So the site had limited exposure in existing publications.”

The Lesson:

“Develop multiple revenue streams out of the box - both online and in print.

“Don’t knock what looks like chump change on an ordinary day. These are not ordinary times.”

Read the full post on Poynter Online.

Northcliffe Unveils Local UGC Sites

The first batch of Northcliffe’s user-generated content community websites has gone live.

A total of 23 areas in the south-west of England are covered by the network of websites listed on the localpeople.co.uk hub page.



Towns covered by the UGC sites include: Newton Abbot, Falmouth, Dorchester and Weston Super Mare.

HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk reports that the new sites are devoted entirely to content from users and are monitored by paid community publishers rather than journalists.

The community publishers are tasked with encouraging visitors to submit their own news and notices and with moderating content.



The director of strategy at Associated Northcliffe Digital said the new sites will complement the company’s established network of news websites, which cover larger areas.

“Our view is that while these sites are quite complementary to the thisis sites they are actually quite different,” said Roland Bryan.

“They are not news-led propositions, they are community-led propositions.”

He also stated that the websites will “create a genuinely user-generated approach to local content, giving local people an online forum to discuss and debate relevant issues with other locals, and shape opinion in their community”.

The network launch was announced by Northcliffe back in May, when the company also revealed that a further 20 sites are to be unveiled later this year.

Find out more about the network of community sites at localpeople.co.uk.

Mirror Launching Footie Site

A website dedicated to the beautiful game is set to be launched this year by Trinity Mirror.


The standalone multimedia site will feature text, video and photographic content from matches, reports the Guardian.

It will have a breaking news feed, blogs, and plenty of special features, such as a weekly video report from the ever popular Robbie Savage and a daily soccer show.

Fans will also be able to access a treasure trove of Mirror Group photographs capturing the highs and lows of English football over the decades.

MirrorFootball.co.uk is scheduled to go live this summer, in time for the start of the new season.

[Photo by Atomic Shed on Flickr.]

Hyperlocal Platform Launched

Hyperlocal news specialist Outside.in has launched a neighbourhood news service for publishers.

Described by its creators as an “out-of-the-box hyperlocal news section”, Outside.in for Publishers (OIP) aggregates local news stories from a variety of sources.

Users can search for news by their area and then select articles and blog posts to read from the pins available on the map.



According to the Outside.in blog, the self-service platform enables publishers to create “hundreds or thousands of new high-quality pages for their site ... with targeted advertising inventory”.

The service has been taken up by a number of news providers in the US, including Counton2.com and Richmond.com.

OIP is not currently available to publishers in the UK, but an international rollout of the service is planned in the future.

Outside.in first launched in the UK in October 2008.

[HT – Journalism.co.uk]

Hyperlocal Training and Revenue Sharing

CN Group is providing training and sharing revenues with community journalists as part of its hyperlocal site development.

Nick Turner, head of the group's digital content development, said at the Digital Editors Network meeting in Preston this week that the 19 hyperlocal sites around Cumbria provide a bridge between the newspapers and the community. Both groups and individuals contribute content directly to the sites, and correspondents get 25% of the ad revenue generated. Advertising on the hyperlocal sites is priced low to attract community businesses.

Training, some of it offered in conjunction with the University of Cumbria, is provided in local libraries.

Turner said local correspondents tend to have a different agenda from journalists; they feel connected with their communities and are interested in trying to resolve issues rather than exacerbate problems. He emphasized that the correspondents provide additional information but that it is not generally the same sort of information that journalists provide and is not a replacement for journalism.

A report on journalism.co.uk provides additional details.

Northcliffe Set to Trial Hyperlocal Sites

Thirty new local Northcliffe sites combining citizen journalism, blogging and Facebook-style social networking will go live next month, according to an item posted to journalism.co.uk.

The initial six-month trial of hyperlocal websites will target towns with populations of 10,000 to 40,000 people that currently have no dedicated local newspaper or website, said Seamus McCauley, strategic analyst at Associated Northcliffe Digital.

"There is a real fear in the journalism industry about the future of local newsgathering. This at the moment is our hope for the answer," McCauley told an audience at City University. "In every town, there will already be a person who writes match reports for football games, businesses who like to talk about their work, churches who host events every week. We want to co-ordinate that activity."

He said the sites will be overseen by "community publishers", whose role will be to keep discussion live and active, oversee content, and provide fresh information. "To make this work, it's crucial to have people on the ground who can find, generate and curate the content," McCauley said.

The sites will be powered by social networking software and by Northcliffe's own news generation facilities. A central moderation team will monitor output across the network and advise the community publishers.

The 30 sites scheduled to launch in June will be concentrated in the southwest of England, from Gloucestershire to Cornwall, including 10 towns around Bristol.

McCauley said the new hyperlocal sites would not compete with its existing network of regional websites under the "thisis" brand. Northcliffe also publishes a series of postcode sites, automatically fed by content from a local title.

"In every town, sooner or later a big issue comes up, and local people will try and knock up a website very quickly. We want to set up these sites so that when an issue arises, they're already there," he said. "But they will also be a place to discuss minor issues and news. Newswires don't localise to that level, and there are no aggregators that provide anything sensible for smaller towns.

"The question is, can we get a certain proportion of a town's population onto each site? This launch will show us."

Compelling Community Content

A blueprint for community newspapers in today's media environment, offered by Steve Buttry of Gazette Communications in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is attracting a lot of attention.

The `C3' or `Complete Community Connection' plan, as summarized by Nieman Journalism Lab (and available in full from Scribd), is an implementation of ideas that Buttry developed while working on the Newspaper Next project at the American Press Institute.

Although it is a family-owned paper, the Gazette is otherwise very comparable to UK regional newspapers such as the Lancashire Evening Post or other Johnston Press dailies.

Among the areas around which Buttry suggests compelling community content can be created are:

* Driving: Features such as gas price mapping, traffic text alerts, databases on bridge inspections, parking offenders, gas pump inspections and a pothole map `can help drivers and car owners regularly over time.'

* Home: `Answerbases' can be created on such topics as property taxes, sales transactions, mortgage foreclosures, delinquencies and ratings of contractors.

* Conversation: Buttry urges newspapers to immerse themselves in social networking: incorporating blogs and Facebook Connect, developing discussion leaders to turn commenting into conversation, and offering rewards for high-value contributors.

* Calendar: A great calendar ('what's on') system is central to the idea of facilitating transactions such as reservations and ticket sales, he says.

* Local Knowledge: In Buttry’s vision, this entails a `place where people of our communities and perhaps across Iowa turn for answers to their questions about this state and its communities: databases, community resources, services, history, unique aspects of local life (attractions, institutions and events) and a user-generated encyclopedia of local knowledge.'

* Personal content opportunities: These include expanded user-contributed content areas for births, milestones, school, graduations, college life, military service, weddings, parenthood, divorce, jobs, health, pets, food, interests, retirement and other stages of life.

Buttry's blog contains the complete blueprint in a series of posts. It's well worth a read.

Regional Business Site Launched

A website dedicated to business news for the south-west of England has been launched by Northcliffe.

SouthWestBusiness provides breaking business news by sector or by area, which is pulled in to the site from the regional publisher’s newspaper titles in the region.

The new website also offers business directories for Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire and Somerset.



According to HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk, the main feature is the site’s comment section which aims to help create an online community of users.

North-West Awards Shortlist Unveiled

The nominees in contention for the 12 prizes at this year’s How-Do Awards have been announced.

How-Do Awards recognise the media and creative industries in the north-west of England, and this year’s website award will be contested by online newspapers, magazines, radio and community sites among others.

The shortlist for the award for Media Website:

BBC Liverpool
City Talk 105.9
Lancashire Evening Post
lancashiretelegraph.co.uk
manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Planet Confidential
Salfordonline
TheBusinessDesk.com
The Westmorland Gazette

How-Do received more than 200 entries this year, with the resulting shortlist for each of the 12 prizes published on the How-Do website.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony to be held at the end of April.

[HT – HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk]

Twitter App Delivers News To Journalists

The creators behind a new Twitter application hope it will provide a “communication channel for people to reach journalists with news”.

Nyouse (pronounced news) is the brainchild of freelance copywriter Leif Kendall and app developer Jon Markwell and aims to divert news tweets to reporters.



Speaking to Journalism.co.uk, Kendall said Nyouse provides a way for “ordinary people to alert the press” about stories that no-one else is covering.

He added: “It really takes two groups of people to understand the process and use it.”

It requires Twitterers to label their tweets with the #nyouse label or send them to @nyouse.

They can then be picked up by journalists who visit nyouse.com or subscribe to the RSS feed.