Innovations in Journalism – socially referred and aggregated news from Yahoo! Buzz

We give developers the opportunity to tell us journalists why we should sit up and pay attention to the sites and devices they are working on.

You’ll know and use Digg and the geeks will be into Reddit - loving it now its gone open source - but there is another one worth looking at, and it’s a biggie. Welcome to IIJ, Yahoo! Buzz.

1. Who are you and what’s it all about
My name is Tapan Bhat and I am senior VP of Yahoo! Front Doors and Network Services.

Yahoo! Buzz beta is an extension to Yahoo.com that unites people with the most remarkable content from websites across the internet and brings the most “buzz-worthy” stories to the Yahoo! homepage.

It determines the most popular, must-read stories and videos from large news sources as well as niche blogs around the web, with an approach that combines user votes with search popularity to determine a story’s Buzz ranking.

2. Why would this be useful to a journalist?
Yahoo! Buzz can be useful to journalists on multiple levels. It can provide increased exposure for your great content. The most popular stories also may be selected by our editorial team and featured on Yahoo.com.

In addition, Yahoo! Buzz offers valuable insight for anyone interested in what is buzzing about and looking for timely story ideas or resources.

3. Is this it or is there more to come?
After only three month in beta, Yahoo! Buzz receives around 8 million unique monthly visitors worldwide according to comScore.

We’ll continue to listen to the feedback from publishers and our users to make sure the site continues to find the most relevant and interesting content online.

Since launching with around 100 large and small publishers, we have gradually been adding new publishers to the beta program and now have around 300 publishers participating.

In the coming months, we’ll continue adding more participants and once Yahoo! Buzz is generally available any publisher will be able to participate.

Looking ahead, Yahoo! Buzz will form the basis for an open ecosystem of publishers, advertisers and consumers.  We’ll develop this ecosystem by building out unique new syndication and monetisation tools that help publishers share relevant content, connect to more advertisers and reach a broader audience. Over time, we expect this to extend into a powerful content exchange that connects owners of content with distributors of traffic.

4. Why are you doing this?
While the homepage has always featured engaging stories and content, our editors could only scratch the surface before. With Buzz we can add more depth to the front page by bubbling up the best content from around the web, as indicated by users.

In addition, it creates a comprehensive, categorised database of content from across the web that can eventually make the Yahoo! network better.

5. What does it cost to use it?
Yahoo! Buzz is entirely free to use.

6. How will you make it pay?
As mentioned earlier, our primary goal is to further Yahoo!’s leadership position as the best starting point on the web and offering more relevant content brings people coming back to Yahoo! again and again.

During the beta process for Yahoo! Buzz, we will also be finalising our monetisation approach, including ways in which we may give prominent promotion to content from Yahoo! partners when appropriate.

Tags: monetisation tools, search popularity, Tapan Bhat, Yahoo

While we were away… EveryBlock, LoudounExtra, BBC plans and more

In case you hadn’t noticed, Journalism.co.uk was in Sweden last week covering the World Association of Newspapers annual conference and the World Editors Forum.

So no one misses out, here’s a round-up of what went down while we were away:

Guardian: BBC ends ‘licence fee’ plans for international news website
The Beeb has dropped proposals for subscription-based access to BBC.com

WSJ.com: Analysis of hyperlocal news site LoudounExtra.com
Following the departure of Rob Curley, chief architect behind the Washington Post spin-off site, WSJ asks if the site has found its audience a year into the project.

Editor&Publisher: 94 newspapers join Yahoo partnership
A total of 779 newspapers now have access to the search engine’s advertising technology and HotJobs ads.

Daily Mail: Sir Ian Blair advocates use of celebrity news videos as evidence in drug trials
Footage, such as the Sun’s infamous Amy Winehouse video and of Kate Moss snorting a white substance, should be presented to the jury in such cases, Blair has said.

Guardian: BBC’s new plans for personalisation of website
Plans to create a new rating, recommendation and personalisation system across bbc.co.uk will be put to the BBC Trust, according to the corporation’s latest programme policy statement.

Editor’s Weblog: Washington Post launches online publishing company
The Slate Group will feature a host of digital titles including Slate and The Root, with additional launches planned.

Telegraph.co.uk: Update on revamp of community blogging platform MyTelegraph
Communities editor Shane Richmond says a relaunch date will be announced by the end of next week.

Matthew Ingram: Globe and Mail removes pay wall
Number of subscribers was not enough to maintain the wall, says Ingram, who works for the paper. Some readers remain unconvinced, he says, pointing out one comment: “You can’t shut us out for a few years and then expect us to come back just because it’s free.”

MediaShift: Everyblock releases first special report
The hyperlocal data and news site has mapped information from a recent Chicago police bribery investigation as part of its first special report.

Tags: advertising technology, Amy Winehouse, BBC, BBC Trust, Chicago, Chicago police, Globe and Mail, hyperlocal news site, Ian Blair, Journalism.co.uk, Kate Moss, Matthew Ingram, news site, Online publishing, Rob Curley, search engine, Shane Richmond, spin-off site, Sweden, Telegraph.co.uk, The Root, The Slate Group, The Washington Post, World Association of Newspapers, Yahoo

Bush gives first online interview to Yahoo

US President George W. Bush will give his first online interview later today in a collaboration between political website The Politico and Yahoo News.

Bush will be questioned on camera by The Politico’s Mike Allen, who will go behind-the-scenes at the White House and ask questions on a ‘colorful mix of serious policy-related topics, and some personal questions’, a release on the site said.

The video will be available on Yahoo News’ homepage from Tuesday afternoon (EDT) with a full transcript on Politico.

“This interview is a natural progression in political news coverage, mirroring the change in the habits of Americans, who are increasingly turning online for their news,” said Alan Warms, vice president and general manager of Yahoo News, in the release.

Tags: Alan Warms, George W. Bush, Mike Allen, The Politico, White House, Yahoo News, Yahoo US

Yahoo! and CNET enter partnership to reach new audiences

Yahoo And CNET Networks have entered into a three-year partnership covering content, advertising and search marketing.

The partnership will extend the reach of both companies, as they give each other access to a huge new audience.

CNET Networks, with brands including Download.com, GameSpot, TV.com and CHOW, will provide Yahoo with technology content for Yahoo Tech and Yahoo News, including news stories, reviews and video.

CNET expects to increase its ‘brand reach’ by tens of millions of people in this way on US Yahoo sites alone.

“This announcement builds on our strategy to be the partner of choice for leading internet publishers looking to maximize their revenue potential and audience engagement,” said Todd Teresi, senior vice president of the Yahoo Publisher Channel, in a press release.

CNET advertisers will be able to target CNET users while they are on the Yahoo network, and the company can offer its marketers advertising options on the video content it provides to Yahoo.

Tags: CNET Networks, internet publishers, marketers advertising options, search marketing, technology content, Todd Teresi, Yahoo, Yahoo And CNET Networks, Yahoo Publisher Channel

Yahoo! announces details of targeted advertising service Amp!

Yahoo! has released more details of its forthcoming online advertising system, which will make use of behavioural targeting.

The AMP! system - formerly known as Project Apex - aims to help online publishers in buying and selling advertising across search, display, local, mobile, and video platforms, and will offer partners tools to target ads according to the location, age and interests of consumers.

According to a press release from the company, the system will give publishers and advertisers access to Yahoo!’s own portfolio of websites in addition to more than 600 US newspapers, which are part of the Newspaper Consortium.
The first stage of Amp! will be rolled out to members of the Newspaper Consortium in the third quarter of this year, with plans to extend the service to additional publishers, advertisers, agencies, and ad networks into 2009.

Tags: ad networks, Newspaper Consortium, online advertising system, online publishers, targeted advertising service, United States, Yahoo

Social Media Journalist: ‘Blogging… the most important social media activity for me by a distance’ LLoyd Shepherd MessyMedia

Journalism.co.uk talks to journalists across the globe working at the collision of journalism and social media about how they see it changing their industry. This week, Lloyd Shepherd, MessyMedia.

1) Who are you and what do you do?
I’m Lloyd Shepherd, and I’m co-managing director and co-founder of MessyMedia. We publish mainstream entertainment and information websites, aka blogs, and we’ve got two going at the moment: Westmonster and Glitterditch. I also do consulting with the Guardian, Channel 4, Yahoo! and the BBC.

2) Which web or mobile-based social media tools do you use on a daily basis and why?

As for social media tools, I’m going to define these as ‘tools that help me interact with other people to get stuff done and swap ideas’. So I’d say these qualify:

Google Apps: it’s a small miracle that you can set up an office software suite for nothing these days, and it’s not even the cost that’s miraculous: it’s the fact that you can run a virtual office IT system without an office IT department.

Mac OS: Apple Mail, iCal, Safari, Address book. All syncing with an iPod Touch.

Netvibes: my browser home page. It lets me track key headlines, Facebook, Twitter and some nice Flickr photos all on one page. My world in miniature.

Facebook: not essential, but useful, particularly for keeping in occasional touch with former colleagues from far-flung parts of the world. This morning I got a question from a former Yahoo! colleague based in Singapore who wanted to know about hotels in Beverly Hills. Why he thought I could help I can’t imagine, but those occasional human contacts are very important over time.

Twitter: I’ve been in and out of this, but right now I’m really into it. Again, it’s about the human touch. People you may know only by reputation come alive in Twitter, and that’s important.

last.fm: Not for work, but still officially The Best Website In The World. Arguing about Elton John and Morrissey with people from Tokyo - it’s what the web is for.

Blogging: I run two blogs: Dadblog, and MessyMedia. Both are essential to me. They let me think things through by writing about them, and they are a calling card. The most important ’social media’ activity for me by a distance, I reckon.

del.icio.us: I use this for links I want to share, rather than links I want to keep for myself. For the latter I use….

EagleFiler: great local software for storing and annotating all manner of things: webpages, emails, documents, the works

3) Of the thousands of social media tools available could you single one out as having the most potential for news either as a publishing or newsgathering tool?

Publishing and news-gathering: most of the things that have ‘potential’ are already huge: YouTube for video, Flickr for photos, Wikipedia for breaking community coverage. These things are going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. I think Twitter’s still got a long way to go: Number 10’s [the UK Prime Minister's website] launch of a Twitter account last week was an interesting moment. And Ning is fascinating too, and growing fast - I think it has to work out a way of providing ‘enterprise-level’ community services (like Pluck) but if it does, it could be massive.

4) And the most overrated in your opinion?

Digg. A daily celebration of the banal and the obsessive. I feel exhausted every time I look at it.

Tags: BBC, Beverly Hills, community services, Elton John, google, important social media activity, LLoyd Shepherd MessyMedia Journalism.co.uk, local software, MessyMedia, mobile-based social media tools, Morrissey, office software suite, Singapore, social media, social media tools, The Guardian, Tokyo, United Kingdom, Yahoo, YouTube

Yahoo goes global with news mapping

Yahoo has combined its RSS feed of top news stories with a geo-encoding function of Yahoo Maps to create the Newsglobe (screenshot below). Fairly self-explanatory, it’s updated every few minutes and indicates the ranking of the news story by the size of the red bar plotting the story.

According to the developer’s blog, the globe could be adapted to show feeds of news by location or defined by specific search terms

Tags: search terms, Yahoo