Wired.com: URL shortener bit.ly to launch real-time news service?

Bit.ly, the URL shortening service, is planning to create a ‘real-time news service’ by building on its relationship with Twitter, where it is frequently used as a link shortener.

The service would track news trends not just the most used words circulated with bit.ly links, reports Wired.com.

This will involve looking at links shared by unlike people, which suggests topics with ‘universal appeal’, Andrew Cohen, bit.ly general manager, told Wired.

Full story at this link…

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South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper unveils new all singing, all dancing website

South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper has substantially revamped its website, in the process introducing a series of new features to improve usability.

M&G Online’s general manager Matthew Buckland blogged recently about the use of Thompson Reuters Open Calais semantic tagging technology to organise and cross-reference all the site’s content for the relaunch.

In addition to this the revamp has introduced a number of key features:

Registration and dashboard

• Like the Guardian in the UK, the new M&G site now allows users to save clippings of favourite articles and story history while browsing.
• Comment on articles and debate with other readers

New features

• It has also introduced a topics A-Z: A list of people, places, subjects and organisations covered by the site
• Added a feature – NewsSwarm – that allows users to see who is viewing which article in real time
• Integrated articles with Google Maps
• Make the popular cartoon sections searchable and tagged
• Added easy exploration of e-commerce areas: jobs, cars, dating, property and shopping
• Allowed users to view related articles from outside the news website.
• Added video feeds

Semantic tagging – a key new element

• Tag clouds of subjects, people and places on the home page and news sections
• Articles regionally organised and can be viewed by country or city with South African news at town, city or provincial level
• Articles are also tagged with names of cities, countries, companies or organisations, and people, which can be viewed in the Topics A-Z section

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Beet TV: TMZ using live web video streaming for celeb snooping – even in court!

The US celebrity tabloid ‘news’ TV show and website TMZ has started using mobile phone technology to live stream video of celebrity goings-on.

And it’s all a great success Alan Citron, general manager of TMZ tells Beet TV.

And the real crowd pullers?

A courthouse appearance by Hulk Hogan’s son and a two hour stream of a car park where Britany was expected to arrive.

‘Hypnotic effect’ of the car park kept viewers interested says Citron.

Glam – this celeb business.

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Triblocal.com expands sites and into print

The Chicago Tribune‘s network of hyperlocal news sites, Triblocal.com, has launched 13 more websites and will launch print editions for these sites later in the year, according to a posting on Online News Squared.

This development boosts the total number of Triblocal.com sites to 21 since its launch at the beginning of 2007.

A further 14 sites are planned by the end of 2008 according to Triblocal’s general manager Jane Jansen, the site reports.

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