2010 - what will it hold for you?

Christmas is coming, the goose is on a credit-crunch inflicted diet and as the journalism world licks it wounds from this year's squabbles, many are starting to look what next year is set to bring.

Firstly, Patrick Smith brings a tale of caution on PaidContent – if you thought hyperlocal news was going to be your big thing of 2010, you may want to have a quick re-think.

He reports that whilst the promise for hyperlocal’s place in UK news is there, the boundless optimism is not in doubt and there’s even hints of a local business model emerging, the delivery of quality post-code level news across most of the country still a long way off, and sustainable revenues and—dare we say it—profits are even further.

He also says how unless the ifs and maybes surrounding the use of hyperlocal models do not turn into certainties the Digital Britain project won’t be up and running till 2012 and that includes any role that public money would play.

So, he says, 2010 will not be hyperlocal’s year. But, he counters, the signs are auspicious: increasing levels of online literacy and broadband connections mixed with more inevitable local newspaper closures mean it’s natural that readers—and advertisers—will shift to new outlets.

Next, acknowledging that talking about journalism and its future is the “lifeblood of Academia”, there’s a nice piece by Harvard’s Nieman Lab writer C.W. Anderson on what we have learnt from 2009 and what new squabbles will arise in the new year.

The article jokes how bloggers and journalists seem to have finally made peace and accepted their perceived war is over; that we realise not all content will be free but the new business models may not be enough to counter the financial losses many news organisations have suffered; and that, because of this, journalism will be produced in a different way – by smaller, niche publications.

Instead, our attentions will turn to the kind of politics facilitated by the digital world and the policies and laws that will govern this world (and whilst the focus of the article is on the US, it is still relevant to the UK as the government faces up to a growing campaign to reform libel law, something it has been considering because of the impact of the internet).

It also talks of the type of networks that might emerge in the new “media ecosystem” – that we may see that it is large media companies that have diversified and created a local branding – and how journalism schools will need to adapt as the industry itself mutates.

It also talks about what the increased use of a semantic web may have for the future of news in a world of Demand Media and computational journalism. Big questions indeed but something new to think about at least.

Finally, for any of those curious to know if the Manchester Evening News’ launch of an iPhone app was worth it – HoldtheFrontPage has the numbers.

They have reported that over 6,700 readers have downloaded the app to follow the latest updates from the paper.

This means that it has been downloaded at a rate of approximately 900 a week since its creation.

There are section for news and show business, among others, while fans of Manchester United and Manchester City can keep in touch with dedicated sections for the two teams.

Northcliffe to trial topic pages

ThisisBristol.co.uk has become Northcliffe Media's first local news site to use topic pages, reports Journalism.co.uk

During the two week trial, articles on the site will now include inline links from key words, such as places, names and issues, to a web page gathering stories, relevant information and multimedia linked to that topic, according to the report.

Robert Hardie, content strategy director at Northcliffe, told the website how the pages are created using a process called data-mining, which uses technology from OpenCalais and Nstein to analyse stories semantically and suggest subjects for topic pages.

"We've already been data-mining our archive and automatically data-mine every live story as part of the normal publishing cycle," he said.

"Once a topic is mentioned more than three times a topic page is created for that topic and an email alerts the site publisher. They can then decide to unpublish the page if they don't want it; allow it to stand unenhanced or gather the extra images, video and static content for it.

"We're starting the enhancement process with the most popular topic pages."He also said how the sites with topic pages will have to carefully monitor the level of sensitivity employed by the semantic technologies so that users are not bombarded with links from every word.

Northcliffe plan to roll out the pages across the rest of the Thisis network following the live testing.

Hardie added how the pages will help drive more traffic to Northcliffe’s websites, saying that they are 'brilliantly indexable' via Google.

News alerts: keeping audiences coming back for more

Newspapers maybe missing out if they don’t make full use of alerts and tools, especially when it comes to exclusive materials, argues Dorian Benkoil of Poynter Online.

He uses the example of the Times’ story of tennis player Andre Agassi’s autobiography - in which he admitted to the use of the drug crystal meth - of which they would then be publishing exclusive excerpts.

Because the Times did not have an alert system (using, say, Twitter or Facebook), which would have encouraged Benkoil to go back to the excerpts when they went live, he eventually started checking Google news and the Guardian, and didn’t return to the original source for some weeks.

This, he argues, is a missed opportunity that could lose newspapers valuable page views, advertising and other opportunities, stating that this is backed up by masses of Web analytics data.

Every little impediment, says Benkoil, is an opportunity for a visitor to leave, go somewhere else, forget they can get what they want from you.

Over time, he adds, that means the loss of real money and all the other metrics people like to use, such as "stickiness" and "engagement."

He continues by saying that if The Times had offered the chance to be alerted when the excerpts were published, not only would they have had his subsequent page views (and ad impressions), they would have had his contact info and valuable information about his interests.

Benkoil suggests that every site should have sharing apps, like the AddThis module at the bottom of the Agassi story that links to dozens of social networking and bookmarking options, amongst many other apps.

But, he concludes, publishers also need to tailor their links and offerings as much as possible.

Sometimes, he says, that will mean human intervention, such as a smart editor saying, "Hey, we've got the Agassi excerpts, they'll be big, so let's make it easy for everyone to find them and get alerted to them."

This will also increase the ability of new Semantic Web applications to place relevant alerts and adverts alongside them and it should be as easy as possible for someone to find what they are looking for on the publication’s site.

FT Unveils Semantic Search Service

The Financial Times has launched a new search service dedicated exclusively to business-related content.

Beta project Newssift differs from Google and other search engines as it trawls only material related to specific topics rather than searching the web as a whole – known as deep search.

Spokesman John Greenleaf said this aspect has helped the FT create “an exclusive content library”.

According to The Guardian’s PDA blog, the service also differs from mainstream search engines as it is based entirely on semantic search rather than keyword search.

This concentrates on meanings and relations between terms or concepts and so aims to produce more relevant search results and recommended articles of further interest.

It is also resistant to efforts by content providers to boost search rankings using search engine optimization tactics, claimed Greenleaf.



Visitors to the site can create their own search queries or use the existing options divided into categories such as organisation, place and person.

And the results page boasts a couple of interesting features with a Sentiment pie chart showing the proportion of positive/neutral/negative articles and a Sources pie chart displaying the share of content from newspapers, TV, news wires etc.

The search facility is free to use and is currently supported by display advertising.

BBC Shares Semantic Web Tests

The BBC is working on prototypes and an API for a semantic web project and has invited users to test them for themselves.

Muddy Boots is the name given to the prototypes, software solutions which have been created to identify the main agents – whether they be individuals or organisations – in any given BBC news story.



The two prototypes and the API developed by the BBC and its external partners can be seen on the Journalism Labs blog and users can input the URL of a BBC article to test their success rates.

And the guys at Journalism Labs are keen to hear any thoughts and suggestions from users about them.