The (e)Grommet » Journalism

Livenotes: Mike Goldsmith future publishing #newsrw

The Gromm — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:06:49 +0000

Talking about different tools and ways to get future content on devices

Page turners require third party unless you make own

Digital replicas pro cycling looks great “on glass”

Multiplatform opportunity
Sneers from tech colleagues – not for you. Would do it in word if customers want it

Scale achievable and affordable

Quick flag in the ground to show future were there

Marketing research or JFDI – digital replica allows you to get it out ther

Get out and learn

Minus
Seen as poor relation by development colleagues
Not completely automated
Still cost involved
Not able to sell advertising solutions out of the box
Manage reader expectations
Need to be 1.4 PDFs

Smart effective first step
Best way to deliver scale

Interactive editions using woodwing
T3 wired project, gq, guitarist deluxe
Making own solution too

Great for iOS as people buy them
Good conversion
Developer friendly
Clients love it
Naturally bring in multi-channel content
More chance of apple promotion

Get conversion from Sampler to subscription

360 degree publishing finally makes sense

Not necc higher price point
Extra device = extra work

Hd edition = hd content

Sexy, expensive, the future

New readers out there don’t think about cannibalisation

Livenotes: data journalism #newsrw

The Gromm — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:52:57 +0000

Simon Rogers from Guardian talking about creating google fusion table as journalists reporting on events

7-800000 page impressions

Started getting arrest data London acquisition (theft) north was violence

But then started to get data from ministry of justice and started mapping

Overlaid poverty index and showed people arrested in Manchester coming from poorer areas

Got front page stories in the paper

Talking about the Detroit project and how that became reading the riots

Used transport data to map how people travelled into the riot zones

Now set to look at criminal justice process

Livenotes: social media optimisation #newsrw

The Gromm — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:24:02 +0000

Martin Belam, user experience lead, the guardian

77 per cent of visits from Facebook to guardian.co.uk were one page

Create app as social reading experience

Faces of friends = engagement?

Opt in alterntaive way of doing it

Triggers “frictionless sharing”
Uses guardian open platform api – made rapid development easier

Seen some people really rail against it playwert tweet<<

50-60m users monthly using website
800m+ on Facebook so why not go for that environment

5.7m installs of app

Demographic of app audience is 24 and under

Loveit/hate it over 25/ in user testing didn't install unders didn't read tandc before installing

Gives archive content 3/4 million times in last 5months sparks over 100 new comments in Facebook and 1400+ likes

Any story can become a landing page but need to authorise it

Facebook motto move fast and break things - and they do.. Forces us to work at their pace - had to move at lighting speed

Video working well

Keep revenue as within iframe a revenue opportunity for us

@currybet

Chris Hamilton, social media editor, BBC news

@chrishams

Three core accounts bbcnews bbcworld bbcbreaking

Previously feed driven

Introduced editorial remit with focus for each of accounts

Focussed on quality of tweeting building on automated headlines and not just repeating it

Consistent tone

Adding value - live,video, pix, graphics, interactives and reweeting of correspondents and programmes

Looking at engagement metrics rather than follower metrics

Using hashtags and usernames to ensure part of network

Two tweets of last year -
tsunami spread warning and Fukushima

CERN and Eiffel tower lighting bolt

Japanese earthquake

Tom Watson from Leveson

Woman caught being racist on tram #mytramexperience

Kim Jong il dies

Gary Moore thin lizzy died

Amy wine house died

What next?
Workflow

New newsroom and workflows being investigated

New priorities for news gathering

Google plus
Set up on day one of brand pages, most followers relatively high engagement and quality is good

World have your say been using hangouts well

Facebook
Range of activity - world news channel BBC hausa BBC London doing well

Seven out of ten most shared pages

Share ability interactivity and playfulness

Big plans for Facebook

Nate Lanxon, editor, wired.co.uk

Spent a long time ignoring Facebook, just using rss and concentrated on twitter

Created photo of zuckerberg to force him to use Facebook

Gets passed around team to whoever is in charge of managing page - passed to intern or whoever else is responsible

Interaction means people see more of your content picks up on point of Francois Nel

Doesn’t drive traffic but is more about behind the scenes stuff

Five pictures of window sill, bizarre stuff that PR people send in

Other day ceiling fell in and did very well on facebook

Post on Facebook going public did less well

Image of new cover got lots of feedback, SOPA and ACTA stories didn’t get as much liking or conversation

Decided as a result of this that our Facebook page was about driving wired to fans and not the other way around

Massive traffic from site sharing to Facebook and not from the wired Facebook page

I redesign share button goes to top – seen that people share from headline and pic without always reading all the content

When do they want to see the backstage content – were posting at worst times eg 930am =bad evening and Sunday is good

First thing
Lunchtime
3pm
530pm
Sometimes in evening and weekend

Wow look at this does better on twitter
Facebook is fan club for content rather than place for comment

Getting rid of comment for Facebook comments

Roadrunner records posted lottery ticket – if you like this you’ll get cut of profits if we win

People want to see some cool stuff and want to win millions – Nate Lanxon on Facebook

Twitter is like referral site – have a look at single content and leave but Facebook visits seem to stick around longer

Darren Waters MSN
Started simply
For MSN managing incredibly complex conversation
How do we manage conversation with a small number of people

One of things we have to do is make a profit so we have to be very specific about how we engage

>> insert image

First head of social
Social contracts for channels – documenting what we know and moving from guesswork
Using homepage to direct people to conversations on Facebook
Best practice sessions for teams – ask right questions and remove bots where it makes sense
Understainding audience rhythms
Consolidating accounts

Facebook up 20 per cent

If people engage with us on soc media visit us 5x more often and spend 7.5x more minutes per visit

Introduced recommendations module
Tapping into what is trending on social media

We need to make social woven into the fabric of our site
It needs to be part and parcel not stuck in a social toolbar

Human tweets vs bots
When journalists tweet vs brand getting 10x response being human is mantra for us
Live plus multiplatform form plus social – engaging users
multiscreen social focus
Focus on social participation

Develop tools which help make sense of noise of soc media, real intelligence which helps us find value

Create journalism that matters to people

Using bing to spot trends in coming months new products will be introduced
Combine intelligence
Social skills
Aggregation

>>>questions
Tools and monitoring
Darren using Facebook insights. Social dashboard powered by insights api used by colleagues in Us. Need to educate colleagues about what works and why it means something works or doesn’t

Martin uses Facebook insights but iframe means can use omniture for the site content shows interactions with content 15000 comments on website same number on Facebook, so double d conversation

Chris insights and other tools working through

Nate – manually posting so can look to what is doing well. Uses faebook insights, google analytics – would love to see them come together

Kevin – Al Jaz uses chartbeat

Q: older demographic uses different tools eg twitter LinkedIn
Chris get human, what can you offer that other people can’t ?
Martin LinkedIn is social media dark horse that we are missing
Nate gear content to the network. We post lighthearted content as quicker, more serious stuff on twitter

Klout? Useful to show peers but not convinced by what it is (Darren)
Nate as measure not really clear – number of followers seems to be better indication but not the only thing
Martin – look at way community managers create lists of who is important
Influence vs engagement

Livenotes: Liz Heron from New York Times at #newsrw

The Gromm — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:51:38 +0000

Liz Heron New York Times
Talking about effect of social media gives example of President Obama engaging with people on Google+ hangout http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/obama-google-plus_n_1242816.html

Over 400 journalists on twitter 50 have subscribe Facebook

Collaborative projects
2011
Arab spring Japan riots
Occupy

Used twitter Facebook tumblr to diversify source and ask provocative questions of our readers
Still questions aggressively and sceptically while on social networks

Gone from being social evangelists to being in demand
Storyful for verification

How do we distinguish ourselves, how do we make our social media projects deeper and more meaningful to our readers ?

Decided to invite readers to guide reporting in real time
They can tweet #asknyt asking for real time fact checking
The tweets can be voted on
Rebuilt live blog to become second screen

During primary nights twitter moves onto home page to make coverage more live
Built from lists built in advance
Also put up reader tweet responses
Approach being followed by per news organisations

Analysis of news media tweets metaliveblog using storify

Facebook and google plus to give direct coverage to the people providing coverage

Host social media chats to find out about readers while they find out about the paper
30min video handouts
Hour long Facebook chats

Keep innovating and keep moving forward
Social journalism

The #iconomy human cost of apple project
Project title that sums up well and becomes “hashtag science”nhelps crowd source and reach audience that don’t normally read nyt

Second #iconomy put out mandarin version and then translated comments back for English speakers

How do you take advantage of all these new social media platforms while having time to sleep?

What can we bring to the platform that distinguishes us?

Facebook more conversational and full of ordinary people

Foreign correspondents and how we live desk being encouraged to use as FCs have global audience
Hwld used to cover story on students and depression – got lots of high quality responses

Google plus – flummoxed at first
Deep discussion and video hangouts
Get reporters to jump in the comments

Tumblr and quora being used too

1 be strategic
2be different
2 strive for meaningful interactions

don’t be content to skate on social media surface

Livenotes: Panel on paid content #newsrw

The Gromm — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:51:29 +0000

Alex Watson, head of app development dennis publishing, on newwstand

App story is a retail environment and newwstand addresses some of the issues of placement. Previously evo’s app sold in amongst everything else.

80000 igizmo downloads before newsstand

Dennis 3.5m downloads since launch of newsstand

$400000 in revenue
Since launch of news stand but big drop off on curve (image to come)

Issue is oconverting free editions to paying customers

Demanding audience, not meeting tech expectations of small number of users so getting massive amounts of demands for tech support

Demands for platforms specific features and high production values

Existing subscribers want free access and subscription teams want to sell bundles – so culture issues

Most of Dennis mags on there except bizarre and some of poker titles given apple’s take on “alternative lifestyles” and legal views on gambling

Some of them are PDF page turners

17 apps but not all designed for touchscreen devices

47k downloads page turner, more of iPad app
Page turner revenue 16k dollars vs iPad app 100k dollars iOS rewards higher quality products

“focus on making a better products will be rewarding”

The week gets massive amount more positive feedback from users and apple had on store home page than happens with page turners.

Focus should be on convenience and useful ness

@sifter

Tom Standage, digital editor the economist

App has started to unlock digital revenues for the economist
30000 using every weeks

A third of print readers are accessing digital content each month

Have audio edition, newsreaders read every single article which are piped into app

“you can listen to the economist on your iPhone while you are jogging”

Encouraging people to think they don’t subscribe to weekly magazine but bundle of content
Extra value for subscribers

Quoting Wall Street Journal amazon customers by 3.3 times as many books after buying a kindle

Essentially people are carrying a bookshop in their pocket not an ereader

More than a quarter of app users have paid for news on tablet compare with 5 percent of browser users – Pew Research

Lean back 2.0 quarter of readers spend an hour to hour and a half reading on tablets, comparable to print

Metred paywall and traffic went up. Five story a week metre and search redraws went up as no longer hiding 99 percent of copy (in archive)

Standage talking about understanding who your subscribers are – working for them but may not work for everybody

@tomstandage

Chris Newell, founder of Impulse Pay

Average credit card transaction is 120 key strokes and too much effort

Pay for it system adds to phonebill vs card payment systems

Charge straight onto phone bill

Issue of other systems and vat for newspapers and magazines

Html5 driven apps compatible with impulsepay

Make it easy and people will pay. The easier you can make it the more people will convert

Francois Nel

The alchemy of business model innovation

Well meaning intelligent scientist who attempted to understand through exp what were the underlying principles that would be able to change elements – same with business model experiments.

Underlying principles in these well meaning experiments?

Reciprocity is key to unlocking our understanding of online business models

Showing use of iPad by two year old nephews working collaboratively – “sharing is caring”

Key element of business relationships is reciprocity

Even a is simple smile, flowers, thank you is essential in relationships

Claude Levi-Strauss on collective consciousness
Reciprocity is key to these relationships and binds us together

World news in innovation study 2012

19 per cent of companies said they would outsource but 75 per cent said would develop new products, 63 per cent would streamline workflow

In other words, do more with fewer people

Top five platforms inc
Social media
Tablet ereader

Stop binary arguments about pay wall and pricing – not helpful
Always had different value propositions and price points – should talk about payment in terms of money time and activity

Looking at guardian and mail as business examples

Business models are not just about revenue

Daily mail in print down yoy -4.63% one of lowest print declines
Almost 5m uk users and 84m monthlies worked wide
Social media 17k likes and 1911 people talking about it
Annual report 2011 dgmt profit of £75.8m before tax

Guardian
Down 14 percent yoy amongst worst performers
Web traffic up 30 percent 3m daily
Spending time and energy on Facebook and others
Fb 278580 likes over 4 millions downloads of app

Ann report operating loss of £54m [check as slide moved on]

Mail has digital channels to supplement the paper while the guardian uses its to replace the paper

Guardian -supplementary or cannibalisation of website?

What does relationship between journalists and audience on tools like Facebook mean for the future

@francoisnel

The hung media: why Apple gets to call the shots in this coalition May not contain nudity

The Gromm — Tue, 11 May 2010 09:10:03 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

Fascinating discussions going on at the moment about the iPad and its implications for the distribution of media content.

Apologies for the tenuous election link – but it is ironic that the media is thinking about a distribution-sharing deal with Apple and is finding that like David Cameron and Gordon Brown whoever Labour get as their boss, things aren’t always that simple.

So is this device the saviour of the media or a chance for Apple to take over the fanboy/girl/tech consumer world?

On one hand, we have the legendary Jakob Nielsen telling us about the implications of the interface and what that means for anyone designing content and on the other there’s a running conversation about self-censorship by the media in order to get your content in the Apple Store.

Bruce Tognazzini, of the Nielsen Norman Group, believes Apple’s stance is similar to printers telling the media what can go on their product

At this point, tens of millions of people are living under significant press restrictions engineered by Apple and Steven P. Jobs.

Uniquely, Apple, in this case, is not even the press. It is the paper company. If the press wants to print its material on Apple’s fine, white vellum, it will do it Apple’s way. And the press, as Dan Gillmor has elsewhere pointed out, is stampeding to do just that, handing over traditional freedoms it normally guards so zealously in the process.

Apple’s rules for its App store, changed back in February after complaints about content. But interestingly the implications of this are that it might not just be those wanting to sell us skin apps, or sex games, that get hit.

There’s an interesting post on Shiny Shiny about the implications Apple’s no-nipples policy means fashion mags are censoring their iPad editions

It’s even more ironic because the iPad has been billed as the saviour of the magazine industry and also given Apple’s reputation as a mainstay of the creative industries.

Side note: have a look at the list of “rude” apps that haven’t been banned – including Playboy

And there was an interesting list of “conditions for acceptance” published on the Techcrunch about the rules introduced in February

1. No images of women in bikinis (Ice skating tights are not OK either)

2. No images of men in bikinis! (I didn’t ask about Ice Skating tights for men)

3. No skin (he seriously said this) (I asked if a Burqa was OK, and the Apple guy got angry)

4. No silhouettes that indicate that Wobble can be used for wobbling boobs (yes – I am serious, we have to remove the silhouette in this pic)

5. No sexual connotations or innuendo: boobs, babes, booty, sex – all banned

6. Nothing that can be sexually arousing!! (I doubt many people could get aroused with the pic above but those puritanical guys at Apple must get off on pretty mundane things to find Wobble “overtly sexual!)

7. No apps will be approved that in any way imply sexual content (not sure how Playboy is still in the store, but …)

So, still some way to go before we know if this coalition will really be as big as some people believe it will be.

BTW, anyone know if Hollywood has to do the “no nips and bits” thing with its movies that are distributed via iTunes?

The utility belt approach to journalism and development

The Gromm — Mon, 10 May 2010 13:07:02 +0000

Ever since I’ve been involved with the ideas of online/digital/data (delete as appropriate) journalism – I’ve been using the metaphor of Batman’s utility belt as a way of thinking about a journalist’s skillet and how it can evolve over time.

Rather than a rucksack full of tools, the Caped Crusader was able to easily change items in and out of his belt pouches to solve the issue at hand.

The constant debates about the skills required to operate in a mediasphere that has rapidly change and will continue to do so for some time to come (unless the departures of Simon Waldman and Will Lewis should have all of us involved in paid journalism worried) have brought me back to this idea.

A while ago some 79 people kindly helped answer a mini survey around this core idea of what skills journalists need. I posted up quick graphs of the responses in a Flickr set, but haven’t had a chance to get to grips with the full responses… yet. (If you fancy getting in on the act, I’ve not closed the survey.)

But one question I asked was: how important do you feel programming and development are?

Colombia set to manufacture robo-journalists

Not really – in case you hadn’t heard, Colombia have created a joint masters programme allowing journalists to develop computer science
skills. It will be interesting to see what they get out of this five-semester course which has some pretty interesting potential.

But how much of these kinds of skills are enough, or too much? Or should it be about enough coding to understand?

My own view is based around experiences gleaned during my master’s degree in elearning technologies with the computing department at Portsmouth University.

During the course we had to learn: some JavaScript, HTML (I tried to be a smart arse and went for XHTML to make my life a bit easier), CSS, Flash, learn about the issues behind interface design and usability, issues with accessibility, educational theory, syllabus design, content design/delivery options, psychology and project management.

I worked out quite quickly that developing takes me a very long time – although I do enjoy it. (Disclaimer: I sat down in 1981 with a BBC Model B, a portable TV for a monitor and what turned out to be a very buggy book on games programming in Basic – and gave up after typing up some 2,000 lines of code that didn’t run, because I didn’t know anyone in my hometown who could help).

I quickly swapped the focus of my studies from building things (which was fun, interesting and useful) to using open source tools and plug-and-play sites powerd by dataportability – and how these can foster learning communities and networks of practice.

On a day-to-day basis though, it is more the understanding of the basic principles that I’ve found useful. And I wonder, given the tight deadlines in MSM newsrooms, whether this is more realistic?

Recently I’ve got a bit of pup combined with the HTML and CSS, which help me unpick some WordPress theme issues.

I’ve started learning some MYSQL, Ruby (a twitter chat with Joanna Geary and James Ball about learning Ruby were something that got me going there), a play with Django (inspired by Adrian Holovaty and Aron Pilhofer) and I’ve downloaded the iPhone development SDK and been having a look at the ITunesU course from Stanford.

I may never be good at any of these, but I’m certainly interested to see how they work.

But Tony Hirst, browser-bashing guru from the Open University (amongst many other things), believes that learning to write for frameworks is not always a good thing – as there are already tools and ways of working that will allow journalists to put ideas together using existing tools. Have a look at his post on Programming not coding…

He’s done some really interesting work in this area – using googledocs spreadsheets for housing/mashing data, linking rss feeds into Yahoopipes and Many eyes wikified to name just a few – here’s a link to the audio and presenttaion he did at the first news:rewired event.

And it is an interesting thought – does everyone need to know everything?

The simple answer is no – but what do we learn?

There’s a really good post from Aron Pilhofer on different frameworks, and how who you talk to will influence what response you get (sounds obvious but read Aron’s post and you’ll see what I mean and why it is still in line with my utility belt metaphor).

Things journalists can should learn from developers

One of the key things I took from my course was some underpinning ideas of developing objects, content, sites etc. I’ve been reading up around Agile development and the Lean business framework as a result. And not being afraid to try things, and get them wrong – now that is an expensive luxury in journalism, but in the right context it is vital (Health warning: obviously not in a story which contains the risk of defamation!!).

And in one of the slew of interesting posts coming in through my twitter feed I found that Martin Belam, information architect over at the Guardian, has been talking about this very issue regarding how journalists think and what they can get from understanding some ideas behind programming.

And he makes this very interesting point about the attitude towards sharing space/knowledge:

“Contrast that with the statement issued on behalf of some sports journalists in Scotland galled at having to sit near ‘bloggers’. Instead, tell a web developer that a bunch of journalists are interested in learning code, and it seems that the most likely reaction is “Yay! How can I help?”.”

The guerrilla approach

I’m guessing that refers to Rubyinthepub – a kind of self-help group (although given my masters I’d rather say learning network or network of practice) that came out of a conversation between Joanna Geary and James Ball on Twitter.

It’s a very simple idea – journalist goes to a pub with a laptop, some beer and a friendly developer. Lo and behold, instant informal learning sessions.

And it’s this kind of approach to journalism (and learning [read continuous professional development if you are an educator]) that I find so encouraging.

So where from here?

We’ll have to wait and see – and to an extent I think it depends on how you perceive journalism (in both its paid and unpaid forms) and what the journalist perceives their role to be.

Colombia’s course sounds pretty interesting, but on a smaller scale most of us who teach journalism are looking at some of the interesting and innovative solutions around at the mo.

But just in case you think development knowledge is not for you, have a think about these examples:

Interested in data/computer-assisted reporting? Maybe a bit of SPSS and Ruby would taste good with your Access or Excel. Or go the googledocs mash-up route for some very tasty visualisation fun.
Part of a hyperlocal team? How about hacking a WordPress install or even using Everyblock code (DJANGO) to create your own scraper site?
Understand usability and accessibility? Then just maybe you can think about how your content is delivered and consumed and adjust your design and writing accordingly (and proper ALT tags help massively here).
Got a basic idea of how (if) the iPad works? Then you can start looking at the business models arguments and see where that takes you.

But there is a simple underpinning concept for me – what is the best tool for the job?

Shark repellent or batarang - your choice?

After all, you may be able to use a batarang to chin a shark – or you could just scare it off with your shark repellent bat spray.

An Alternative Future for Journalists (onemanandhisblog.com)
Can Computers Replace Journalists? (freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com)
Hack to Hacker: Rise of the Journalist-Programmer [The Future] (gawker.com)
Coders meet journalists; journalists meet coders (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
How much computer science does a journalist really need? (blogs.journalism.co.uk)

When you look at NSFW pics beware the camera crew

The Gromm — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:28:00 +0000

An Aussie bank worker is probably in line for some serious grief from his boss after he was seen looking at naughty pictures of women with very little in the way of clothing, while a colleague was being interviewed by a TV crew from Channel 7.

Sit back and gawp as the camerman zooms in before yer man realises what is happening. (The zoom in is from the Youtube vid as other versions don’t do it)

Live TV catches Australian banker looking at semi-nude photos (news.bbc.co.uk)
Work and Porn Don’t Mix [Video] (cityfile.com)

How to report the news

The Gromm — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:56:36 +0000

Just in case you missed it this week, or on all he other sites.

A picture of journalism skills

The Gromm — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:39:33 +0000

I recently asked for help from anyone interested in the future (actually that should probably be futures) of journalism to lend a hand with a mini survey on journalism skills. This was prompted by a number of posts and conversations (you can see a couple of them by following the link above).

In total 75 kind people volunteered their time and effort to answer the questions. I’m going to get to grips with it and add my two pence/cents worth on it over the next few days.

But rather than just sit on it until marking hell becomes a little easier, I’ve screen grabbed the graphs returned by the googledocs form and share them here as a slideshow (in no particular order).

(Just in case you have an issue with Flash widgets, here is the Flickr set of the images)