#Tip of the day for journalists: Researching with Google Images

Colin Meek, who runs Journalism.co.uk’s advanced research skills training course, recently posted two tutorials on his site which look at how to use Google Images as a research tool. According to Meek, “using image search properly can help you focus your research in unexpected ways especially when your research subject has a strong visual element”.

See the first tutorial here, which looks at the “basic and advanced options that demonstrate the potential of images as a research tool”. The second tutorial addresses “the ‘search-by-image’ reverse image search that takes things to a different level”.

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link.

Similar posts:

• #Tip of the day for journalists: Learn how to find ‘hidden’ web content
• #Tip of the day for journalists: Search for open government data
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – try an advanced Twitter search using SocialBro
• #Tip of the day for journalists: Try creating web videos using Popcorn Maker
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – comprehensive Twitter guide for journalists

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – hosting Google+ Hangouts On Air

A number of news outlets have started experimenting with using Google+ Hangouts to interact with readers, such as by hosting interviews or holding open editorial meetings.

Mashable has collected together some advice on engaging a community using Google+ Hangouts On Air, which allows Hangouts to be broadcast live.

See the full post on Mashable.

You can also find some pointers and inspiration on using Google+ Hangout in the Journalism.co.uk reports below:

• NYT to host Google+ Hangouts On Air with Olympic athletes
• The Stream holds open editorial meeting via Google+ Hangout
• Time magazine hosts its first Google+ Hangout On Air

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link.

Similar posts:

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – how to host a Google+ Hangout On Air
• #Tip: Keep an eye out for the launch of Google Capture for Hangouts
• #Podcast – Google+ at one: Lessons from Time.com and FT.com
• IOC approves blogging athletes for Beijing – with strict rules
• Tips for journalists wanting to engage with 20m Google+ users

How important are ‘tweet’ and ‘like’ buttons to news publishers?

A conversation was sparked on the effect of social media sharing buttons by the designer Oliver Reichenstein on his blog informationArchitects. In the post titled Sweep the Sleaze he writes:

But do these buttons work? It’s hard to say. What we know for sure is that these magic buttons promote their own brands — and that they tend to make you look a little desperate. Not too desperate, just a little bit.

adding

If you provide excellent content, social media users will take the time to read and talk about it in their networks. That’s what you really want. You don’t want a cheap thumbs up, you want your readers to talk about your content with their own voice.

The Tweet and Like buttons, followed by their lesser rivals Google’s +1 and LinkedIn share buttons are now ubiquitous on news websites. Visitors to the Huffington Post in January 2008 would have been given the option to share an article via Digg, Reddit and Delicious. Now they are given up to 20 ways to share an article just via Facebook alone. Users are certainly being bombarded by myriad sharing options, they are not always that pretty and Reichenstein is approaching the issue as a minimalist designer.

But is Reichenstein right?

Joshua Benton at Nieman Journalism Lab did a little digging into the effectiveness of the Tweet button for a variety of news publishers. Using a Ruby script written by Luigi Montanez , Benton analysed the last 1000 tweets from 37 news sites to find the percentage of tweets emanating from the site’s Tweet button.

The analysis comes with a few caveats so it’s well worth reading the full article but the take-away is that people are using the Tweet button. Of the news sites analysed most had 15 to 30 per cent of their Twitter shares come via their Tweet buttons. Importantly, they act as a starting point to get content onto Twitter and can lead to further retweets or modified retweets.

Facebook Likes are a different story. They are far less visible on another user’s news feeds, especially after Facebook changed the amount of output its Social News feed spits out.

At least one publisher has found positives to removing the Facebook Like button from their site, claiming it increased referrals from Facebook:

We removed FB buttons and traffic from Facebook increased. Reason: instead of “liking” articles, readers share it on their timeleine.

— Smashing Magazine (@smashingmag) May 22, 2012

Jeff Sonderman writing at Poynter hypothesises there is a strange tension created by having a sharing button on news articles:

One argument in favor of sharing buttons is the psychological phenomenon of “social proof,” where a person entering a new environment tends to conform to the behavior demonstrated by others. How does that apply? The tally of previous shares on a given article could offer social proof to the next reader that it is indeed worth reading and sharing — “just look at all these other people who already have!”

But in this case, social proof is not the only force at work. We also know that many people share content because it makes them look smart and well-informed. Part of that is being among the first to have shared it, and thus not sharing something that’s already well-circulated. In this way, a sharing button could limit the potential spread of your best content.

These buttons are being used but news publishers need to think about how they are being used and how engaged the users of them are. Sonderman thinks Reichenstein gets close to the mark when he states:

If you’re unknown, social media buttons make you look like a dog waiting for the crumbs from the table … That button that says “2 retweets” will be read as: “This is not so great, but please read it anyway? Please?”

If you’re known and your text is not that great the sleaze buttons can look greedy and unfair (yes, people are jealous). “1280 retweets and you want more?—Meh, I think you got enough attention for this piece of junk.”

Similar posts:

• #Tip: Three handy Twitter tools
• Tweet, Like and Google +1 buttons: lessons in privacy
• Hearsay, a non-Facebook way of social news sharing
• Poynter: How to get more people to share news from your site
• Google’s +1 button now acts like Facebook share

Media release: Study finds 13% of Google searches include journalist photo bylines

More than one in 10 Google UK search results includes at least one journalist photo and bio byline, according to a study by search and social analytics company Searchmetrics.

The study looked at the top 100 search results from 1 million keywords and found that 13 per cent included journalist bios and pictures for the author of articles.

Getting a photo and bio displayed in search results requires a journalist to have a Google+ account and their profile to be linked with news stories (instructions on how to do this are here).

UK writers in the top 20 include Charles Arthur, the Guardian’s technology editor, and Edward Chester, reviews editor at TrustedReviews.com.

US journalists dominate the top 20, “meaning UK journalists and publications are missing out on increased visibility, traffic and potential advertising revenue”, according to a release from Searchmetrics.

The author profile feature, known as authorship markup, is something that Google has been rolling out since the end of last year. It includes author profile information with a thumbnail image and links.

The release states:

Journalists and bloggers who write about technology, medical and food topics are among those that are most visible in author profile integrations according to the study by search and social analytics company, Searchmetrics, which analysed Google UK search results relating to one million popular keywords.

Marcus Tober, founder and chief technology officer of Searchmetrics said in a statement:

More writers from US-based sites are appearing in the top 20 because authors generally need to have a profile on the Google+ social network to be displayed in author integrations – and we assume more writers for US sites are on Google+ and also Google has possibly encouraged some US sites to set up their articles for author integrations.

It was surprising to see more than one in ten of the results tested are showing author integrations because this is still a new feature – it’s much higher than I expected.

Searchmetrics top 20 authors with picture and bio bylines

Author, Writes for (includes), Topic, Page 1 integrations*, Total integrations**

1. Elaine Lemm , NYT, About.com, Food, 581, 1,989
2. Dr. Melissa Stöppler, WebMDNetwork, Medical, 545, 1,412
3. Diana Rattray, About.com, Food, 530, 1,529
4. Tim Fisher, About.com, Technology, 472, 1,897
5. Alison Doyle, About.com, Job search, 438, 1,442
6. Dr. William Shiel, WebMDNetwork, Medical,  403, 866
7. Dr. Ben Wedro, MDDirect.org, Medical, 328, 877
8. Dr. John Cunha, WebMDNetwork, Medical, 328, 790
9. Bradley Mitchell, About.com, Technology, 321, 1,363
10. Cathy Wong, About.com, Alt Medicine,  316, 839
11. Stephanie Jaworski, JoyofBaking.com, Food, 307, 1,005
12. Laura Porter, Visit Britain, About.com, Travel, 281, 1,929
13. Edward Chester, TrustedReviews.com, Technology, 264, 733
14. Luke Westaway, CNET UK, Technology, 254, 1,292
15. Gordon Laing, Cameralabs.com, Photography, 248 , 1,200
16. Charles Arthur, Guardian, Technology, 218, 1,271
17. Laura K. Lawless, French, About.com, Languages, 218, 705
18. Hubertus Keil, Alicante-Spain.com, Travel, 214, 1,070
19. Adam Pash, Lifehacker, Lifestyle/Tech, 204, 1,311
20. Richard Trenholm, CNET UK, Technology, 200, 1,931

*The number of times a writer appears in author profile integrations displayed on the first page of Google.co.uk search results in Searchmetrics’s study
**The total number of times a writer appears in author profile integrations displayed in Google.co.uk search results in Searchmetrics’s study

Similar posts:

• Journalists get a photo byline in Google News (but only those on Google+)
• Google announces new Chrome extension to block ‘content farms’
• Reporters to get author pages with Google’s new authorship markup
• Media release: StumbleUpon is most important content sharing site for Mail Online
• TechCrunch: Google Realtime Search adds Facebook

Tool of the week for journalists: Google Follow Your World

Tool of the week: Google Follow Your World

What is it? Add a location and Google will notify you every time a new satellite image is added for that location.

How is it of use to journalists? Mark a location and each time Google updates the satellite and aerial imagery in your area of interest, you will be notified.

Think of it as like Google Alerts for mapping information.

Consider the possibilities for digital journalism in having images showing the changes to the Olympics site, an area of coastal erosion or the development (or lack of change) within the Government enterprise zones.

It is a tool that requires patience as it may take months or even years for Google to update the aerial imagery for your area of interest.

Similar posts:

• Tool of the week for journalists: Data.gov.uk’s map-based search
• TechCrunch: Fwix launches new location-based search portal
• Tool of the week for journalists – Trendsmap, for tracking conversations in your area
• Interactive maps of tornado damage
• The Guardian publishes first ‘geolocated’ article

#jpod – Google microsurveys: Lessons from the Texas Tribune and Adweek

Google announced last week that it had partnered with a number of US publishers, promising revenue-generating opportunities for online news organisations.

When a reader lands on the site they will see a box containing a question. By answering that question, which is being asked on behalf of a market research company, the reader earns $0.10 for Google, $0.05 of which the internet giant gives to the publisher.

In this Journalism.co.uk podcast I speak to representatives from two US publishers that have adopted microsurveys: the Texas Tribune, which added microsurveys in August 2011, and Adweek, which adopted them last week.

• April Hinkle, chief revenue officer at the Texas Tribune, which launched in 2009, explains how much revenue Google microsurveys generate each month.
• Doug Ferguson, general manager of digital at Adweek, tells us how the site is using the surveys.
• Patrick Smith, editor and chief analyst of TheMediaBriefing.com, explains why data collection is important for publishers.
• John Barnes, managing director of the technology and digital division at Incisive Media and chairman of the Association of Online Publishers (AOP), explains what type of surveys and data collection methods could be most valuable to UK B2B and B2C publishers.

Podcast: Download

You can hear future podcasts by signing up to the Journalism.co.uk iTunes podcast feed.

Similar posts:

• The top 10 most-read stories on Journalism.co.uk, 7-13 April
• CJR and the Texas Tribune: Is data both journalism and a business?
• #MarketBriefing: ’80% of digital revenue comes from your loyal audience’
• Five great examples of data journalism using Google Fusion Tables
• Kindle expanding to more than 100 countries

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – try this tutorial on using Google Fusion Tables

At the Guardian Open Weekend Kathryn Hurley from Google and Simon Rogers, editor of the Guardian’s Datablog, ran a session on using data and working with Google Fusion Tables.

Kathryn Hurley has helpfully published her workshop notes on Google Fusion Tables online. They act as a step-by-step guide to getting started in data journalism using the free software from Google.

Simon Rogers has also published his slides on Fusion Tables and an explanation of how the Guardian uses data.

Journalism.co.uk runs training courses in data journalism led by Kevin Anderson. There are two levels: introduction to data journalism, being held on 9 or 28 May, and intermediate data journalism, which will run on 29 May.

Those looking to expand their skills quickly can book on one of the introduction to data journalism courses and the intermediate course. If you book both options the cost is at the reduced rate. 

This is the last time we will be offering this course led by Kevin Anderson due to his commitments – so take advantage of the final opportunity to learn from this former BBC and Guardian journalist.

Similar posts:

• #jpod – Open data and journalism: How and why journalists should be digging for stories
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – try this Google Fusion Tables tutorial
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – dive into the data journalism handbook
• Tool of the week for journalists: Data.gov.uk’s map-based search
• Five great examples of data journalism using Google Fusion Tables

Google to help Tunisian journalists pick up new skills

Google is to sponsor six Tunisian journalists to spend three months at a leading French newspaper, picking up digital news-gathering skills.

The internet giant has teamed up with liberal daily Le Monde, which will offer a newsroom placement to each of the journalists, covering daily news and the French presidential elections taking place in May.

Google’s William Echikson wrote on the company’s European public policy blog:

Our hope is that they then will return home with new skills that will serve to construct a new, free but responsible professional press in Tunisia.

At Google, we are aware of the need to work with publishers to smooth the transition not only from oppression to freedom, but from analogue to digital distribution. We are sponsoring a series of digital journalism prizes with Institut de Sciences Politiques, the International Press Institute in Vienna and the Global Editors Network in Paris.

Meanwhile, journalism academics at City University in London are heading to Tunisia next week to lead a series of workshops for Tunisian journalists on “reporting a democracy”.

The project is the first of its kind being organised by the Journalism Foundation, which was founded last December and is led by former Independent editor Simon Kelner.

City lecturer Roy Greenslade writes on his Guardian blog:

The courses are the first to be held in Tunisia since last January’s overthrow of Ben Ali’s authoritarian regime.

They will provide practical advice to journalists on coping with the realities of reporting in a free society. But the classes will be held amid an ongoing battle for media freedom.

Similar posts:

• App of the week for journalists – Google Latitude, for adding locations to stories
• French newspapers in cahoots over pay system to rival Google
• Owni.fr: The mainstream press has a 17 year old rival
• BBC calls on journalists to mark World Press Freedom Day
• #GEN2012: Follow the Global Editors Network News World Summit in Paris

UCLan project awarded £64,000 from Google to support ‘news entrepreneurs’

The University of Central Lancashire’s Journalist Leaders Programme has secured €75,000 (£64,000) of Google funding to support “news entrepreneurs” after being named as one of three winners of the International Press Institute’s News Innovation Contest.

The programme, founded by researcher, academic and consultant on newsroom and digital business innovation François Nel (pictured), will develop a project called Media and Digital Enterprise (MADE), to offer an “innovative training, mentoring and research programme”.

The funding awarded by IPI will be spent by the UCLan programme on working “to create sustainable news enterprises – whether for social or commercial purposes – by helping innovators”.

Nel told Journalism.co.uk MADE will “support the entire news ecosystem as we need innovation across the sector”.

He is now looking for people with entrepreneurial ideas who are interested in news innovation.

The other two winners of the contest are Internews Europe, a European non-profit organisation created in 1995 to help developing countries establish and strengthen independent media organisations to support freedom of expression and freedom of access to information, alongside the World Wide Web Foundation, a Swiss public charity founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web.

In February Google announced it was awarding $2.7 million to the Vienna-based IPI for its contest.

There were round 300 applicants, reduced first to 74 and then to 26 before the three winners were selected by a panel of seven judges, including journalism professor and commentator Jeff Jarvis.

The winners of the total fund of $600,000 were announced yesterday; Nel heard this morning how much the MADE project is being allocated, telling Journalism.co.uk “it’s fantastic to have support for news innovations”.

Nel and others working on the Leaders Programme have been working with news organisations, including Johnston Press, Trinity Mirror and the Guardian Media Group, looking at digital processes and innovative business models.

MADE allows us to pull those strands together and work with directly with news entrepreneurs. And we’re really excited about the possibility of putting this to the test.

Nel explained that MADE will “deliver good skills for a whole range of news start-ups” and he is now “looking to work with individuals, groups and companies, who are interested in news innovation” to get involved.

The project will help develop new skills and test the business plans, offering bespoke support to those with entrepreneurial ideas.

We’re looking to support five good people and good ideas for at least three months so that we can give those ideas legs.

The project includes various partners that were part of the bid, including one to build content and one to build communities.

Developers at ScraperWiki will be working with the project to develop innovations in data journalism and build content. Another partner is Sarah Hartley who is now working on the Guardian’s social, local, mobile project n0tice, with this area of the project focusing on building communities.

MADE will also involve Nel’s colleagues at Northern Lights, an award-winning business incubation space at UCLan.

The project also has an international element, involving groups in Turkey, drawing on Nel’s connections in the country.

Nel explained why the funding and ongoing support from IPU is vital.

In the digital news media space the cyber world is littered with start ups. The corpses of news start ups are every here. What we really need to do is help news entrepreneurs stay up and that’s what we are trying to do here.

• This announcement details more of MADE’s aims.
• This post has information on the project and includes contact details for François Nel.

Similar posts:

• Knight News Challenge 2012 ‘networks’ winners to be announced later today #newschallenge #civicmedia
• J-Lab: Four US women-led news ideas each win $12K funding
• Innovative journalism/technology development projects in the US and UK
• The Guardian Awards for Digital Innovation open for entries
• Inaugural British Media Awards winners announced

#news2011: Paywalls – ‘the solution is going to be unique and individual’

In one of the first sessions at the Global Editors Network news summit today the panel discussed paywalls and paid-for apps.

One of the speakers was Frederic Filloux, general manager of ePresse Consortium, the “digital kiosk” or newsstand from ePresse which launched in July this year after just six months of development by a two-man team (the catalogue section of the iPhone app is shown in the screenshot on the left).

Filloux gave an interesting insight into the model and the online challenges of the industry in which it performs.

He said the kiosk has a “news DNA”, leaving the leisure magazine market to other outlets.

“It is highly selective. It had just eight publishers at start, and might have grown to 12 in January. It is capturing an 85 per cent reach, the market is quite concentrated.”

I spoke to him more about the platform after the session, when he also discussed how ePresse would be working with Google’s One Pass system

Frederic Filloux of ePresse by journalismnews

During the session the speakers also called on editors to experiment with numerous revenue streams, and find their unique market.

Filloux told the conference “the company that will survive will be the one able to have not two but 15 different revenue streams and be able to test, experiment and find out what will be most valuable … It will have to test a lot and try many formulas.”

Fellow speaker Madhav Chinnappa, head of strategic partnerships for Google News, added that “the solution is going to be unique and individual”.

In my personal opinion the most successful paywall has probably been the Financial Times, but they have a unique set of circumstances. It took them years to develop their paywall, trying different things. They spent a lot of effort around customer data. They come from unique position. I don’t know any human who pays for a subscription to the FT, it’s companies, so that’s going to be different from most newspapers in the audience.

Similar posts:

• #jpod – Paywalls: Helping readers over the fence
• #wef11 audio: Jim Brady of Journal Register Company talks open newsrooms
• #jpod: The AOP Digital Publishing Summit
• #wef11: Publishers share paywall strategies and lessons learnt
• #soe09: What are the revenue opportunities for newspapers – and what are the ‘donkeys’?