It certainly caused a snigger or two in the Journalism.co.uk office when, more than a year ago, we came across the unfortunate byline placement on this story in the Times, which happened to be about the Vienna Boys’ Choir sex abuse scandal – a story written by Roger Boyes, Berlin correspondent for the newspaper.

Since then, as reported by FleetStreetBlues, Boyes has had to bring in reputation management to clean up the damage caused to his online profile. In an article for the Times today, as FSB reports, Boyes writes about about how he had to perform “a kind of digital exorcism”, whether he liked it or not.

Here’s the hitch though: I never wanted to join Facebook. Now I am signed on (and have no access to it), accumulating friends who presumably have been put up to it by the reputation managers. It’s not me, it doesn’t feel like me. And the YouTube video, though duly positive, just looks daft. So it seems that the only way I can fight the lasting effects of my Twitter ambush is by exposing myself more online.

• ‘We wanted to make ourselves more Facebookey’, says Guardian
• The Daily Beast: How Facebook’s news feed works
• Video is just start of online for Sport, says MD
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – allow people to ‘subscribe’ to your Facebook profile
• Financial Times: Clearance on BSkyB bid delayed by at least two weeks

New figures released by intelligence service Hitwise show that traffic to the Times’ new site, thetimes.co.uk, has halved in the last week, following the closure of timesonline.co.uk.

The drop also ties in with the introduction of user registration in preparation for the paywall.

On Wednesday, the title’s market share of UK internet visits was down to 1.81 per cent, less than half its average during May.

The average session time has also fallen from five and a half minutes, to three, which Hitwise research director Robin Goad says is better than first thought.

That figure is actually higher than many people would have expected, given that a lots of visitors will be spending very little time there if they are choosing not to register.

Over the last month, the title’s market share has also dropped to 2.67 per cent in the week ending 19 June, compared to 4.37 per cent during the week ending 22 May.

The Times’ new registration site, MyTimes+ was the top visited site after thetimes.co.uk.

It’s a chance to see first traffic statistics for the soon-to-be paywalled site, which were not released with other UK national newspaper website figures in the ABCe audit for May.

Goad concludes:

It’s still early days, but the conclusion so far seems to be this: since it forced users to register in order to view its content, the Times has lost market share. However, this decline has clearly not been catastrophic and none of the paper’s rivals has particularly benefitted. Yet. The real test will come when people actually have to pay rather than simply register to view the Times’ content.

See the figures in full here…

• Hitwise: The Independent gains online market share in the UK
• Ofcom report: 30 stats on smartphones and internet use
• RWW on AdSense and Hitwise on Twitter and retailers
• Hitwise: ‘Guardian receives more traffic from Twitter than competitors’
• Hitwise: More traffic going to content websites than transactional sites

Last Friday we were sniggering away over a Telegraph headline malfunction. Today it’s a very unfortunately bylined story from 18 March about the world-famous Vienna Boys’ Choir being caught up in a paedophile scandal:

Now that is the kind of content we might be willing to pay for.

(via @gabefleming)

• FleetStreetBlues: Roger Boyes on reputation management after unfortunate byline
• Journalism’s own goals and gaffes 2010
• #wef11: ‘News industry is in the vortex of a fast changing world’
• Foreign Office in massive U-turn on World Service headline
• Greenslade: What the papers did, and didn’t, say about Coulson

The Times reports in its leader how one of its reporters, Dominic Kennedy, was expelled from a BNP meeting yesterday. The newspaper also claims that the reporter was assaulted.

Mr  Kennedy was not attending the meeting covertly. He had expressly been invited to report on it by Simon Darby, the party’s national press officer. On pointing this out, Mr Kennedy was physically ejected.

Full story at this link…

Kennedy’s account at this link…

Also see: BBC News video.

• Editors’ Weblog: Details of Associated Press search landing pages
• Local news blogger refused entry to coroner’s court
• Tweeted debate: does it have any significance for democracy?
• HTFP: Wales on Sunday pays BNP for copyright breach
• ‘Reporting the BNP’ site launches for journalists

NMA has more details on News International’s pay wall plans – Times Online is reportedly set to introduce the system in Q1 next year, while dates for The Sun and News of the World are undecided.

The Times website will also have a redesign next year as part of the changes.

“A source close to News International said because users will be charged to access the title, the site won’t focus on generating page impressions. It will be overhauled with a focus on a rich user experience, with content easier to find, and building greater user interaction. It’s also planning to run more live debates across the site, such as a recent discussion about the BNP,” writes NMA.

Full post at this link…

• Shropshire Star posts 59% rise in page impressions
• Big numbers vs local audience – what should regional newspapers chase?
• FT revamps Chinese website, increases video
• News of the World paywall to be launched in October, report claims
• CNET relaunches GameSpot website

Interesting poll currently running (well, at 2:54pm on July 24 at least) on Times Online asking if and how much listeners would be willing to pay to listen to its podcast The Bugle.

Of course this means nothing more than the podcast’s producer’s curiosity over whether its audience would be willing to pay. So far, 41 per cent of respondents have suggested they would pay something; though 59 per cent say they wouldn’t cough up at all.

It’s also quite refreshing to see a newspaper site ask its users outright – whether this means there are any plans to charge or not.

According to a Bloomberg report today, Jonathan Miller, chief digital officer with News Corp, whose News International arm owns the Times, has suggested the group could start charging for news and entertainment online.

Back in June, MediaGuardian reports suggested the Times’ sister title, the Sunday Times, was considering setting up a paid-for standalone webiste.

• Media moves: Telegraph gets Mike Seery; Guardian appoints new CFO
• Telegraph’s Cheesbrough climbs paywall to land News International job
• FT.com: Murdoch considers charging for online news, developing e-reader
• Times and Sunday Times reach 79,000 digital subscribers
• MediaGuardian: The Daily to launch in the UK within months

The Times has introduced a new commenting system for its website lifting the upper word limit for comments from 300 to 2,000 and introducing a registration system.

“This will enable us to highlight and reward our best commenters, and weed out our least constructive,” writes online editor, Tom Whitwell – though no fixed reward system is mentioned, as yet.

Commenting systems differ between the paper’s blogs and the rest of its editorial content, but there are plans to switch the blogs over to the new platform.

Full post at this link…

• Guardian blogs complete move to new technology platform
• Guardian relaunches blogs and commenting features
• Independent integrates article comments with Twitter and Facebook
• Newspaper Innovation: History suggests Independent’s i may face rough seas
• Times are changing: an online jobs shuffle at Times Online

There are no plans to introduce a pay wall at Times Online – despite recent suggestions by newspaper rivals, paidContent:UK has learned.

Full story at this link…

• Daily Intel: New York Times to bring back pay wall?
• NMA: Times pay wall from next spring?
• paidContent:UK: News aggregator may take legal action against NLA copying levy
• News International: ‘no decision made on Sun paywall’
• AdAge.com: New York Times planning new ‘testing’ site

Some quick analysis over at Malcolm Coles’ blog, suggests that Times Online is the most popular UK national newspaper when it comes to article-sharing/bookmarking on StumbleUpon.

Full post at this link…

• Malcolm Coles’ blog post results in changed T&Cs on newspaper linking
• Malcolm Coles: Why the Guardian’s future does look bleak
• Round-up: Charging for online – Murdoch and the FT
• Media release: StumbleUpon is most important content sharing site for Mail Online
• Producer responds to Guardian TV review: ‘If an opera is reviewed, you get someone who knows about opera’

Among the inauguration day records for media sites, nice to hear of success for Times Online’s own interactive coverage – a liveblog using CoveritLive.

Run for eight-and-a-half hours and hosted on the Times’ Comment Central blog, the liveblog attracted 35,000 visitors and 50 comments a minute at its peak, according to a tweet from Tom Whitwell, assistant editor of Times Online.

• Times are changing: an online jobs shuffle at Times Online
• Developers get bylines too in the Times
• #FollowJourn: @tomwhitwell/assistant editor
• Guardian reprimanded by readers for comments on Cumbria shootings liveblog
• Podcast: The Times, Guardian and Google at AOP diversifying revenues forum

The UK edition of Conde Nast technology magazine Wired has named the editorial team for its website – set to launch in April to coincide with the print title.

Former online technology editor for Times Online, Holden Frith, takes up the reins as editor of Wired.co.uk; while the site’s news editor will be Katie Scott from Pocket-Lint.

Full story at this link…

• #followjourn: @paullamkin – Paul Lamkin/tech journalist
• #followjourn: @dansung – Dan Sung/technology journalist
• Wired gets ‘wired’ with Adobe for iPad edition
• Wired for iPad edition set for summer launch
• TechCrunch: New site for Hearst to semi-automate content

Thanks to Tom Whitwell, assistant editor for Times Online, for bringing this to our attention: today’s print edition of the Times complete with joint byline for developer Julian Burgess.

The graphic printed was a visualisation of answers to a blog post on the Times’ Comment Central, which asked readers what their biggest hope for President elect Barack Obama was.

• Election day newspapers sold on eBay
• The New Republic: Why journalists should benefit from Obama’s ‘New Deal’
• New York Times opens ‘Visualization Lab’ online
• Obama’s first 100 days: how the web is covering it
• News sites get social for Obama inauguration

So, it’s all change at the Times and Times Online.

Anne Spackman, as reported last week, is now the comment editor of the main paper, after a spell as editor-in-chief at Times Online since 2006.

That role is not being replaced. Instead:

• Tom Whitwell, who is currently communities editor at Times Online, will be assistant editor of Times Online.

• Hector Arthur, who was previously the head of content development for Times Online, is the new head of digital development for the website.

Speaking in a press release, the Times’ editor, James Harding said:  “Anne Spackman has done an extraordinary job at Times Online bringing our journalism to more people than at any time in our history.

“She has expanded the nature of what we do as a news organisation, introducing a 24/7 newsroom, launching The Times Archive and developing our podcasts, video and reader comments online”, he said.

Praising the new online assistant editor, Harding said that Tom Whitwell had “been one of the driving forces behind the phenomenal growth of Times journalism online and our audiences worldwide.”

• #FollowJourn: @tomwhitwell/assistant editor
• Guardian: Times website seeks Sky News link-up
• Podcast: The Times, Guardian and Google at AOP diversifying revenues forum
• Daily Intel: Lessons for other publishers from the Times paywall
• Times Online inauguration live blog attracts 35,000

This post has backfired a little: the original idea was to look at how the national broadsheets reported the ABCes because it’s always interesting when a publication or website has to report on itself – on its good or bad performance.

Here’s how the Guardian did it today:

That obsession [Team GB] most obviously helped the Guardian, which took advantage of the Beijing effect. That meant that guardian.co.uk remained the UK’s biggest online newspaper for August, attracting 23.11 million global unique users last month, a 46% increase from August 2007 and up 12% on July this year. The Guardian added 2.5 million unique users last month and still has the largest number of UK-based online readers: 8.77 million or 38% of its total audience.

And on the day itself like this.

And Telegraph.co.uk?

It looks like they didn’t.

Times Online?

It appears not.

Independent.co.uk?

Nope.

FT.com

No.

Please correct us if we’re wrong.

Looks like there was only one national newspaper who gave the August stats so much online space. But you could read about the ABCes at Brand Republic, Press Gazette, NMA and here at Journalism.co.uk. Or find the data for yourself here.

• ABCes: Independent.co.uk records biggest increase in daily browsers
• How the Guardian and Telegraph overtook the Mail in latest ABCe traffic report
• Media Guardian: 15m UK users visted newspaper, claims ComScore
• Twitter tops BBC for monthly traffic, while BBC Online click-throughs exceed 10m
• Paywall results in for Newsday as US newspapers see dip in traffic

The Times website wants to carry more video content from Sky News.

Times Online editor-in-chief, Anne Spackman, told MediaGuardian.co.uk that negotiations to make this happen were at an early stage on the newspaper website carrying breaking news videos from Sky.

Any deal is likely to improve the online video offering from the Times.

Despite being one of the first national newspapers to adopt a TV service the Times offering has fallen behind other nationals – in terms of quality – and seems to be due an overhaul.

• New York Times expands video online
• Sky ramps up ads in online video
• UK national papers offering collective ad package
• FT.com: Thomson Reuters’ video product Insider to launch on 11 May
• Video search engine Blinkx partners Guardian