Feeds feast for FT: new corporate RSS and FriendFeed experiment

(Try saying that headline 10 times fast)

First up, the Financial Times has announced a new RSS service for corporate users - an add-on for those paying subscribers who signed up for the site’s direct licence system introduced in April last year.

The customisable RSS feed will be available to corporate customers, who under the licence arrangement are entitled unlimited access to FT content on FT.com and third-party services, and can be tailored by specific search terms, a press release from the title said.

Not full-fat feeds as yet - users will click through to read articles on the main website.

Elsewhere, technology journalists at the FT’s San Francisco bureau have been experimenting with FriendFeed to create a single source of their links, articles and blog posts (it can also be used for Twitter and Flickr updates):

Tags: Financial Times, FriendFeed, ft, RSS, San Francisco, San Francisco bureau, search terms, technology journalists

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Telegraph Blogs: News on the web needs to be free

Shane Richmond is not convinced by the FT.com's subscription model: "it will become harder and harder for the FT to maintain its audience as the internet generation climbs the corporate ladder," he writes. "The current audience believe they are getting content that they can’t get anywhere else - and that certainly isn’t available free - but the audience of the future may already have found other, more accessible publishers to meet their needs." Full story...

Tags: ft, FT.com, internet generation, Shane Richmond, subscriptions, telegraph

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Press Gazette: FT.com gaining European business readers, says survey

The number of readers of FT.com among the respondents to the survey, which questioned 'senior decision makers' in 17 European countries, rose from 9.2 per cent in 2006 to 10.3 per cent. Full story...

Tags: business, Financial Times, ft, Readership

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FT.com recruits Bono and Jeffrey Sachs as bloggers

U2 frontman Bono and development economist Jeffrey Sachs are teaming up with FT.com in a bid to form the world’s ultimate rock group to blog their way through the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals summit, which starts in New York on Thursday.

Sachs, who is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Bono will post ‘development diaries’ throughout the event, a release from the paper explains.

Coverage was kicked off with a Q&A with Bono, who, it seems, is taking his duties pretty seriously:

AB [Andrew Beattie, FT trade editor]:What are the two or three goals you want to achieve this week?

Bono: 1. Blogging for the FT, being your roving reporter in the canyons of Manhattan. While the world upends on Wall Street, I’ll be mostly midtown at the UN and the Clinton Global Initiative talking about the resilience of the world’s poor while the world’s rich find out how fragile life can be.

Or then again…

AB: What exactly happens in the meetings you have with these world leaders?

Bono: Judo in a suit.

Tags: Andrew Beattie, blogging, ft, Jeffrey Sachs, U2, United Nations

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FT revamps Chinese website, increases video

The Financial Times has overhauled its website FTChinese.com, which was launched in 2005.

FT video channels and content on careers are being added to the site, which will also have improved internal search and navigation, a statement from the publisher said.

Readers can also bookmark content on the site with a new ‘favourites’ tool.

Tags: China, ft, FTChinese.com, internal search, launch, National newspapers, Online Journalism China

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MediaGuardian: FT.com stalls after theft of computer equipment

The Financial Times’ news team was unable to update its website for several hours this morning after thieves stole computer equipment from Cable & Wireless’ data centre at Watford.

The site’s Alphaville blogged ran live updates on the situation and published stories while the main site was out of action.

Tags: Alphaville, ft, The Financial Times

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FT.com embeds video in news pages

FT.com has started embedding video footage in its news story pages (example here).

Prior to today’s launch of the smaller embedded player users were directed to a specific page for video content.

FT.com follows the BBC in embedding video in its news pieces and more widely across the site.It stared in March and soon after claimed the move had led to a doubling of views.

Tags: Digital video, ft, Video

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paidContent UK: Interview with FT.com’s Rob Grimshaw

Ien Cheng’s successor Rob Grimshaw discusses subscription models and the possibility of even more niche, paid-for content on the site.

More blogs, embedded video and a pink page backgrounds are also in the pipeline.

Tags: ft, Rob Grimshaw, Rob Grimshaw Ien Cheng

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FT launches first in series of niche online news services

The Financial Times (FT) has launched the first in a series of online financial news services for Europe.

Ignites Europe - aimed at workers in the European cross-border fund industry - has been launched by online news organisation Money-Media, which was bought by the FT in January.

The service is an email newsletter featuring 10-12 stories and mixing both original and aggregated content.

The paid-for newsletter expands the title outside of the USA, where it has been published for 10 years.

Tags: Europe, ft, launch, Money-Media, niche online news services, online financial news services, online news organisation, The Financial Times, United States

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NYTimes.com and BBC scoop prizes at Webby awards

The New York Times website won two awards for best news and newspaper at last night’s Webby awards.

BBC News also picked up an accolade for news, while its world service website won an award for radio.

The Financial Times blog Alphaville was also named best business blog.

Winners at the Webbys were asked to make a five-word acceptance speech - the full list of which can be read on the awards website.

Here’s a selection:

“No longer a newspaper site.” (NYTimes.com)

“Me, me, me, me, me!!!” (comedian Stephen Colbert named person of the year)

“Not bad for an aethiest [sic].” (Speaking of Faith, winner in the religion and spirituality category)

Tags: Alphaville, Awards, BBC, ft, newspaper site, NYTimes.com, Stephen Colbert, The Financial Times, the New York Times

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