Steve Safran from Lost Remote adds a reflective take on Google Wave to the comment mounting up about it’s demise. According to Safran, the platform’s processes could be mirrored in the newsroom.

Back in September 2009, I wrote in the AR&D Newsletter: “Imagine starting a wave in your office about a news topic. People can constantly add to it, putting in the latest pictures, video and information. The assignment desk can contribute its findings and the reporters and producers have instant access, as well as the ability to add more. We don’t yet know how newsrooms can fully take advantage of this tool (and isn’t that wonderful?) but we do believe it will be a powerful way to have the entire staff work together.”

I was wrong.

Despite the product failing, says Safran, the experimentation should be admired.

See his full post here…

• Buzzmachine: Could Google’s Wave be new reporting tool?
• Revolution: Welt Kompakt launches Google Wave to reach readers
• Editor&Publisher: New York Times creates ‘instant op-ed’ feature online
• LA Times: Eight ways Google wave could ‘transform journalism’
• RSF: ‘New wave’ of obstacles for communication in Burma

Shane Richmond responds to last week’s New York Observer article on the allegedly waning influence of the Drudge Report.

Looking at its audience, impact and design, Richmond argues that the news aggregator, which broke the media blackout on Price Harry’s deployment to Afghanistan, still has its edge:

“For his audience, Drudge is a kind of search engine but one that has already answered their question,” he writes.

“It’s a simple idea, executed brilliantly. The Drudge Report is a page of search results, handpicked for an audience its author knows well.”

Full post at this link…

• Reporters to get author pages with Google’s new authorship markup
• Google launches What Do You Love search
• What’s the Drudge Report worth?
• Media release: Study finds 13% of Google searches include journalist photo bylines
• PIXSTA develops ‘image-to-image’ search engine

A daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site. You can also sign up to our e-newsletter and subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

News and features:

• New partnership for Al Jazeera Network and A24 Media
• Blog search engine Technorati to publish ‘original content’
• Kate Day takes communities editor role at Telegraph’
• Trader Media Group: Can news organisations learn from AutoTrader?
• Smart Moves: Kurt Edwards moves to Future as digital commercial director

Ed’s picks:

• ‘Access Denied’: Frontline Club discussion on global media coverage (video)
• Ryan Sholin’s five tips for hiring developers
• Huffington Post seeks headline help on Twitter
• The Internet Manifesto translated by its critics
• Journalism Online paid content venture to take 20 per cent commission
• Times of India: Protests in journalism department over ‘commercialisation of education’

Tip of the day:

• Searching UK newspaper articles

#FollowJourn:

• @martinstabe/online editor

On the Editor’s Blog:

• Online anonymity: Journalism.co.uk joins the debate on Al Jazeera English
• Linking data and journalism: what’s the future?
• This week’s new jobs from Journalism.co.uk
• You must not embed the Telegraph’s embeddable video
• First web editors appointed to American Society of News Editors’ board

• Times of India: Protests in journalism department over ‘commercialisation of education’
• Journalism Daily: Timetric on data journalism, new book on financial journalism and Northcliffe’s hybrid model
• Journalism Daily: Digital magazine store launch, MSN Local and new editor for the Sun
• Journalism Daily: More on online sub-editing and public interest journalism
• Journalism Daily: BBC video plans, Trinity Midlands strike and perfecting the press release

The following great new jobs have been added to the Journalism.co.uk jobs board this week:

Senior editor (healthcare)
Our client is a well-known healthcare communications agency with offices on both sides of the Atlantic. They are committed to quality and excellence in everything they do, creating integrated campaigns across a wide range of communication channels.
Salary: On application
Formula Won
London, United Kingdom
>>more

Editor (medical journals)
If you are looking for a role that blends hands-on editorial tasks with a more strategic oversight remit, this could be a really interesting opportunity.
Salary: On application
Formula Won
Central London, United Kingdom
>>more

Editor (special projects, medical)
If you are looking for a role that will offer you the opportunity to work on a range of different projects across multiple formats, this could be a great opportunity.
Salary: On application
Formula Won
Central London, United Kingdom
>>more

Editor (medical)
Our client is a well-known healthcare communications agency with offices on both sides of the Atlantic. They are committed to quality and excellence in everything they do, creating integrated campaigns across a wide range of communication channels.
Salary: Competitive salary – full details on request
Formula Won
Central London, United Kingdom
>>more

Editor/Journalist
Position open for editor or experienced journalist in the Maldives
Salary: DoE
Minivan News
Male’, Rest of World
>>more

Technical editor
Talented and enthusiastic writer wanted to join team on leading online photography magazine
Salary: £16K-£25K
Magezine Publishing Ltd
Shireoaks, nr Worksop, England
>>more

Machinery editor
Machinery editor required for Farmers Guardian, the UK’s national agricultural newspaper.
Salary: DoE
Farmers Guardian
Preston, England
>>more

Journalists/PRs
This fast expanding London-based PR agency with an impressive and growing client list is looking for journalists and PRs at all levels to join their team.
Salary: DoE
Results PR
London, England
>>more

Journalist/Reporter
Wanted: Reporter, for global weekly commodities newsletter, with ability to converse fluently in German and/or Italian. Suitable for ambitious trainee or an experienced journalist.
Salary: £17K – £19K
Agra Informa
Tunbridge Wells, England
>>more

Assistant editor (permanent, full time)
With an excellent knowledge of domestic and international cricket and the ability to use existing technology and adapt to future changes for this market-leading cricket online news site.
Salary: DoE
ESPN
London (Hammersmith), England
>>more

Producer
With substantial experience in a similar role, exceppent project management and communication skills and experience in delivering complex multiple web production projects in a commerce environment for this travel search engine.
Salary: Competitive
Travelzoo (Europe) Ltd
London, Covent Garden, United Kingdom
>>more

Assistant producer
With experience as editiorial assistant, online content manager or online marketing assistant and excellent written and verbal communication skills for this travel website.
Salary: Up to £26K
Travelzoo (Europe) Ltd
London, Covent Garden, United Kingdom
>>more

You can view the full jobs board at http://www.journalism.co.uk/36/64/.

• Twenty-four great new jobs this week on Journalism.co.uk
• Eleven new journalism and media jobs on Journalism.co.uk
• New editorial and media job vacancies on Journalism.co.uk
• Eighteen great new media jobs added to Journalism.co.uk this week
• Latest media jobs on Journalism.co.uk

A new feature has been added to Google News, Spotlight, which (according to a very brief explanation by Google) is :

“(…) section of Google News [that] is updated periodically with news and in-depth pieces of lasting value. These stories, which are automatically selected by our computer algorithms, include investigative journalism, opinion pieces, special-interest articles, and other stories of enduring appeal.”

By looking at both the search engine’s own explanation of Google Spotlight and the selection of stories it has flagged up so far, Nieman Journalism Lab’s Zachary M. Seward suggests, “Spotlight shines on longer features that have bounced around blogs for a few days.”

According to Seward, lifestyle and opinion pieces fare well, while the New York Times is a frequent source. He does see potential for the new section, however, as a way of using people’s online activity to highlight interesting and important material.

[Laura Oliver adds: The usefulness of Spotlight will perhaps be greater for those who use Google News as their first port of call for the day's headlines - but what portion of Google News' users behave in this way (figures welcome) needs to be taken into account.]

• Nieman Journalism Lab: Google News and the ‘blog’ label
• SearchEngineLand.com: New AP stories no longer appearing in Google News
• American Society of News Editors fights back with ‘mythbusting’ columns
• Stephen Glover: ‘Attack Google too, if you value privacy’
• Google+ is now open to all – but are journalists using it?

A daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site. Additionally, you can sign up to our e-newsletter and subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

News and features:

• Wired Journalists community acquired by Publish2
• Event: Guardian hosts live Q&A on careers in online journalism
• Smart Moves: Rich Sutcliffe to edit Brand Republic

Ed’s picks:

• Lost Remote: How WCCO broke a story on Twitter
• Reuters: Independent News&Media likely to agree bond extension, says source
• Search Engine Roundtable: Google News now re-indexing with latest version
• CMLP: Anonymity of online speakers protected in District of Columbia Court of Appeals

Tip of the Day:

• Getting rid of spam followers

#FollowJourn:

• @kristinelowe/media journalist

On the Editors’ Blog:

• Update on Wired Journalists’ new look; Publish2 claims it now has 20 per cent of all journalists in the US
• CUNY New Business Models for News, as seen in Aspen

• Search Engine Roundtable: Google News now re-indexing with latest version
• Update on Wired Journalists’ new look; Publish2 claims it now has 20 per cent of all journalists in the US
• Reuters: Independent News&Media likely to agree bond extension, says source
• Tool of the week for journalists – Greplin, to search your private files and profiles
• UK national newspapers neglecting sitemaps for better search indexing

It’s noted on the Search Engine Roundtable blog that Google News is now re-indexing and crawling news sources for the latest version, provided updates are posted within a ‘short period of time’.

In the past, once a story was published and Google News indexed it, Google News would keep the item as it was, even if changes were then made by the publisher.

Full post at this link…

Users in the Google News Help forum discuss the issue here. Google employee Inbal Drukker said:

“We now do have the ability to re-crawl your articles to make sure we have the latest version displayed on our site if these updates are published within a short period of time.”

• Google News Blog: Living Stories project to go open source
• NYC 3.0: Kommons – creating a real-time news platform for specific communities
• Journalists get a photo byline in Google News (but only those on Google+)
• Spleak apps deliver politics and sport news to social networks
• Google adds Google News to Google Earth

NWN Media, which publishes titles including the Evening Leader and the Chester Standard, has become the latest regional media group to partner with property search engine Nestoria for its property listings.

Prior to signing up the Johnston Press division, the start-up has made deals with fellow regional newspaper group Archant and the Independent.

It’s also partnered with listings sites Zoopla and PropertyNews.com.

• Archant and Telegraph in geotagged search launches
• Adrian Jeakings will replace John Fry at Archant
• New look for Archant’s Eastern Daily Press
• Motors.co.uk expands regional newspaper deals
• Regional online traffic compared; Johnston Press comes out top

Blogging: Technorati can help you find out who’s linking to your blog – and inbound links will help your search engine ranking. For a step-by-step guide to getting started on the site, use Old Media New Trick’s post. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – the importance of ‘deep linking’
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Alternatives to whois
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – creating iPhone apps
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – B2B guide to using Twitter
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – positioning Google ads

Google is not liable as a publisher even if ‘snippets’ (the summaries contained in its search results) contain libellous words, a high court ruled last week.

The search engine’s UK and US divisions were sued in England by a training business over comments about its distance learning courses made on a US web forum – an excerpt of which then appeared in search results for the firm.

“Google said that Google Inc. should be sued in California, not England. But even if England is the proper forum, it argued, Google has no responsibility for the words complained of, and therefore there is ‘no reasonable prospect of success’ which is a requirement of rules on serving lawsuits outside the court’s jurisdiction,” reports OUT-LAW.com.

In his ruling, Mr Justice Eady made some additional, significant comments (close to this writer’s heart):

“There appears to be no previous English authority dealing with this modern phenomenon (…) Indeed, it is surprising how little authority there is within this jurisdiction applying the common law of publication or its modern statutory refinements to Internet communications.”

Full story at this link…

• Simon Singh goes to Court of Appeal
• Out-law.com: German court rules that Google image search results do not infringe copyright
• HTFP: Newsquest wins court ruling in defence of user-generated content
• Simon Singh update: senior judge baffled by ‘artificiality’ of case
• The Register: Dutch news portal sued over Google page summary

News start-ups: There’s a top 10 of search engine optimisation tips especially for online news start-ups courtesy of Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan on the OJR site. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

• OJR: Search engine optimisation tips for online news start-ups
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – an SEO slideshow
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – optimise urls for search engines
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – SEO tips for bloggers
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – the importance of ‘deep linking’

Search: If you’re covering an ongoing news story or topic, why not set up a topic page. Incoming links/searches about that specific issue will then be directed to your index page, help boost your search engine ranking further. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Use Technorati to monitor incoming links
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – top ten SEO tips for start-ups
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – an SEO slideshow
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – optimise urls for search engines
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – finding search terms for your site

Round-up of Danny Sullivan’s, editor of Search Engine Land, tips for new online news organisations on SEO. Including: creating standing pages for popular ongoing stories and issues; and discovering relevant search terms and keywords linking to your site.

Full list at this link…

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – top ten SEO tips for start-ups
• Guardian was wrong to buy Madeleine McCann keywords on Google
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – identifying search keywords
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – the importance of ‘deep linking’
• Mediating Conflict: Looking at the media ‘stealing’ stories from blogs

“I think we have done a relatively poor job of creating things that work on a per-second basis,” said Google co-founder Larry Page in his closing speech at the search engine’s Zeitgeist conference.

Google has fallen behind Twitter in this respect, said Page, who also highlighted the potential for up-to-the-minute publication of info to compromise accuracy.

Full story at this link…

• Google Zeitgeist videos: Salman Rushdie, Chad Hurley, Gordon Brown, Will Lewis, Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, Sergey…many more
• Poynter: Google’s new +1 social search and news publishers
• SplinterNet: How to get to the top of Google News
• Journalists get a photo byline in Google News (but only those on Google+)
• Yahoo to open up mobile web pages to developers

The search engine giant will today make the case that regional newspaper publishers should be allowed to merger, because of the impact of Google and other internet companies, in its submission to the Office of Fair Trading’s review of the existing newspaper merger structure.

Full article at this link…

• Media Release: Office of Fair Trading seeks input on local media mergers
• Sky News: Trinity Mirror approached Mecom for merger
• Belgian newspapers seeking £39m damages from Google
• DNA09: Aggregators – friend or foe? Unfair competition, says Copiepresse
• Times: BBC to offer rivals help developing news programmes