Online Journalism round-up

Independent to charge for bulk printing

The Independent is living up to its name by trying a different approach in the battle to generate revenue.

The blog UpYourEgo has written how the newspaper is set to charge users for printing stories from their news site.

It describes how you get the choice of a ‘free print’ where you can make up to five copies using your home or office printer for free (with an ad).

You could also make an Instant print on your home printer with six or more copies from 25p to £1 per copy without ads.

You can get a quote for customised prints with your own logo for more than 100 copies on high quality paper.

Or you can have 50+ copies printed by them and sent to you within two business days, these cost 75p to £1.10 per copy – again with no adverts.

But, suggests the blog, the system from iCopyright which offers options for printing within a popup wouldn’t stop you just copying and pasting.

There are no paywalls, so on-screen content is still free and the newspaper will have to wait and see if this makes any difference to their finances.

But, as the blog says, it is different.

(via Martin Stabe)

New guidelines published on using UGC

Alfred Hermida’s Reportr blog has an interesting story on new guidelines that have been issued by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association, in partnership with UNESCO on how to handle user generated content.

According to Hermida, apart from covering the usual issues such as quality and any legal questions, it has sought to press the idea of UGC promoting greater media democracy.

The advice, he says, focuses not just on how to handle UGC, but also on the issue of media and information literacy.

It argues that news organisations would benefit from promoting greater media literacy, by strengthening relationships with audiences and countering claims that UGC is just a way of getting free content.

NYT app for Blackberry

Finally, whilst developing an app for an iPhone may seem old hat now, Editor and Publisher has reported that the New York Times has developed an app for the latest models of Blackberry Smartphones.

With advertiser sponsorship by UPS, the app application formats content for optimal navigation and display on BlackBerry Smartphones, offers automatic synching and allows users to store articles directly to their devices for offline reading.

"Mobile continues to be a very popular way for Times readers to access our content," Marc Frons, The New York Times Co.'s chief technology officer/digital operations, said in a statement.

"With this new application for BlackBerry Smartphones, we are offering BlackBerry users with the latest models a faster, more dynamic and more personalized experience for reading up-to-the-minute news, analysis and opinion from NYTimes.com."

The app is available here.