Mobile devices account for nearly 7 per cent of web browsing in the US, according to a new report by comScore.

In the UK it has been predicted that mobile browsing will overtake desktop browsing in 2013.

Although the comScore study is based on US device use, it has lessons for UK publishers as they consider mobile-friendly websites, smartphone and tablet apps and the potential revenue from relatively new products such as iPad magazines.

Here are eight key facts for publishers from the latest comScore study on internet use on mobile devices:

1. Mobile devices account for 7 per cent of US web traffic

Around half of the US population uses the internet on a mobile device, which has increased by almost 20 per cent in the past year.

2. Two thirds of browsing on mobile devices takes place on phones; one third on tablets

Two thirds of the 6.8 per cent of mobile web traffic took place on phones during August; one third of that figure took place on tablets.

3. iPads account for nearly 98 per cent of US tablet market

iPads dominate among tablets in the US, accounting for 97.2 per cent of all web tablet traffic.

4. iPad web browsing has overtaken iPhone browsing

iPads have begun to overtake iPhones in being used for web browsing. iPad browsing accounts for 46.8 per cent of iOS internet use, 42.6 per cent takes place on iPhones.

5. People are increasingly using WiFi for mobile phone web browsing

The study found that more than one third of mobile phone web browsing took place via WiFi in August. Conversely, people are increasingly using tablets, which traditionally required a WiFi connection to access the internet, to connect via mobile broadband. In August, nearly 10 per cent of traffic from tablets occurred via a mobile network connection.

6. Nearly 60% of tablet owners use the devices to consume news

Three out of five tablet owners consume news on their tablets.

7. A quarter of those who read news on a tablet do so daily

One in four tablet users consume news on a tablet do so on a near-daily basis

8. iPhones and iPads dominate, nearly one third of mobile web users have an Android device and just 5 per cent use a BlackBerry

Apple devices such as the iPhone and iPad accounted for nearly 60 per cent of the mobile web browsing; Google Android just over 30 per cent, BlackBerry RIM just 5 per cent, and other platforms nearly 5 per cent.

In a release, Mark Donovan, senior vice president of mobile at comScore said the findings show an “explosion in digital media consumption”, labelling those in the use of connective devices as “digital omnivores”, consumers who access content through several touchpoints during the course of their daily digital lives.

He said:

In order to meet the needs of these consumers, advertisers and publishers must learn to navigate this new landscape so they develop cross-platform strategies to effectively engage their audiences.

There are 10 facts on the UK mobile market published in June here.

• Wired.com: 26 per cent of Wired mobile traffic now from iPad
• FT web app has been used 1m times
• Analytics to help news sites understand the mobile audience
• Flurry: Mobile app use overtakes web browsing in US
• Nieman: ‘The real tablet revolution seems to be upon us’

The winners of the 2011 Dart Awards, which recognise outstanding reporting that portrays traumatic events with accuracy, insight and sensitivity by US media outlets, have been announced.

The Boston Globe won for “A tormenting problem: An exploration of new-age bullying“, the Dallas Morning News for “Private battles“, NPR with the Center for Public Integrity for “Seeking justice in campus rapes“, and NPR with ProPublica for “Brain wars: How the military is failing its wounded“.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and WLRN reined honourable mentions.

Set up by Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1995, the award programme is open to teams with winning teams receiving a $5,000 cash prize.

• Arkansas Business: US TV journalists fired over YouTube news spoofs
• Press Photographer’s Year Award 2011 opens for entries
• Tracking Twitter – kind of like keywording
• AP: US military backs down on photography ban on soldier casualties
• Tool of the week for journalists – ProPublica’s TimelineSetter

Miranda Cresswell, senior vice president for strategy and operations at BBC Online speaks to Beet.TV about the new US edition of the broadcaster’s news website:

“The impetus for the US edition of BBC news is really about building on momentum as a business (…) BBC is one of the world’s greatest story tellers and we tell incredible stories through news video (…) So video is really at the centrepiece of what we’re doing.”

• AOL names new leader of news division
• Beet.tv: Conde Nast streams 5 million video views a month
• FT.com: Microsoft unlikely to pay users to leave Google
• Adweek: Atlanta Journal-Constitution advertises print as digital escape
• Yahoo! and CNET enter partnership to reach new audiences

My colleague Judith made a valiant effort getting our 12 days of Christmas for journalists to fall into rhythm – glad we didn’t attempt the below, created by writer Bill Dyszel (found at mediabistro.com):

• ‘The Freelancers’ National Anthem’ from the maker of the ‘The Morbid Major Magazine Song’
• #followjourn: @lucytobin – city reporter/freelance
• #FollowJourn: @Pixelsmith/news editor
• #FollowJourn: @bill80/digital editor
• Overheard something humorous in your newsroom?

Politico’s content-sharing network, launched only three months ago, has signed up more than 100 partners, including 67 newspapers.

The agreement will make Politico’s online political news content available in return for ad placement on partners’ sites.

• Advertising: Newspapers sign up with Zillow.com and Politico; UK radio station launches motor ads site
• MediaWeek: YouTube connects news organisations with cit-j video
• ITN to provide archive video footage for Al Jazeera
• YouTube moves into India
• Allvoices signs syndication deal with WENN

To complement its liveblogged coverage of election day, which is still going at time of writing, Guardian.co.uk has changed its homepage design to the below:

This is a template that could be used for other major news events. As BBC News online editor Steve Herrmann told Journalism.co.uk earlier this week the election has been a great opportunity for news sites to experiment with coverage and layout, developing features for future use.

• #ge2010: How to follow election day online
• BBC News and Sport websites show off new looks
• US elections: the best of the rest on the web
• Innovations in Journalism – EditGrid
• Video from Beet.tv: How Reuters used social media in Iran to source video

While reviewing the best online coverage of election day, CNN’s press office dropped us a line about the ‘magic board’ – a map of the states which will be used by presenter John King to show the results and forecasts as they come in.

For anyone who loves/loathes a good swing-o-meter, here’s Saturday Night Live’s take on it:

• AP to stream live video on US election night for first time
• Japan quake sends record audiences to broadcast and online news
• Media release: AP supplying Super Tuesday results on a Google map
• #ge2010: How to follow election day online
• Telegraph’s new election database (in beta)

For those that have been under a rock/on Mars for the last year, the next President of the United States will be decided tonight, giving news organisations another opportunity to flaunt their interactive, live reporting and user-generated wares as the votes unfold.

We’ve already covered Sky News’ election coverage and BBC News’ live online plans, but here’s our round-up of some of the best projects out there – open up twenty browser tabs, sit back and enjoy:

• NYTimes.com: the paper has set up a political ‘word train’ visualising how readers are feeling. It’ll update with new answers every 30 minutes (thanks to @matthewbuckland for the link). Elsewhere the site’s homepage is dominated by election coverage, with plenty of images and video – making use of the new video player – and a pop-up results widget.
• Twitter Vote Report: the microblogging tool has been harnessed by a network of volunteers to map voters’ experiences at the polls. Tweets tagged with waiting times (e.g. #wait 120 for a 120 minute delay) are plotted creating a rapidly updating map of problems. Could be a great service for local newspapers in the states to provide:

• Current: using Twitter, as it did during the presidential debates, the site and channel will integrate Tweets, Digg headlines and video from 12seconds as part of an election broadcast.
• WashingtonPost.com: the paper has gone for an aggregated approach, pulling together all strands of its election day coverage on a map. The TimeSpace: Election graphic shows photos, video, articles, tweets, posts and audio and lets you scroll through the day with a timeline:

• Yahoo: created a one-stop shop, US election microsite drawing together all of its features, including forums, Yahoo Answers, AP and Politico stories and aggregated content from external news sites, a Flickr stream of photos and options to set up news alerts on the candidates.
• Hubdub: the just-for-fun news prediction site is carrying an election forecast map, which it claims is based on ’51 underlying prediction markets that respond in real-time to breaking news’. Users can view forecasts state-by-state to help them decided where to place their Hubdub dollars when predicting the outcome of questions such as ‘Who will win the 2008 US Presidential Election?’ and ‘What will be the margin of victory in the state of Ohio?’

That’s not enough, I hear you cry. You want more? Well, over at paidContent:UK, Robert Andrews has wrapped up the online coverage from the UK’s newspapers, while Online Journalism Blog chieftain Paul Bradshaw has an extensive list of online activities.

This is only the tip of the iceberg – any other great coverage, tools or websites that need a mention, let us know below.

• News prediction game Hubdub launches widgets
• Washington Post buys #election hashtag for midterms
• Hubdub introducing ads to website
• AP to stream live video on US election night for first time
• US elections: CNN’s ‘magic map’ gets spoofed on Saturday Night Live

Shift to the left online and recent misleading reports on the site are causing a decline in Drudge’s influence, says columnist John Gapper.

“Mr Drudge has cried wolf so often in recent weeks that he can hardly claim credit when the wolf finally shows up.”

• What’s the Drudge Report worth?
• Allthingsdigital: Huff Post edges past Drudge for traffic
• FT’s Gapper’s response to Guardian’s Emily Bell’s response to John Gapper’s ‘cut-and-pasting’ (or aggregating) comment
• Felix Salmon: ‘Online subscription revenues won’t make newspapers profitable again’
• Shane Richmond: Why the Drudge Report hasn’t ‘lost its edge’

Following the release of its first campaign finance API earlier this month, the New York Times is handing over even more of its data to users with the launch of the Visualization Lab.

Using IBM’s ‘Many Eyes’ technology, the lab allows readers to experiment with different ways of visualising data sets from the Times, whether these are stats and figures included in articles or simply the words used in a speech reported in a news item.

Visualisation options, of which there are currently 17, range from graphs and maps, to word trees, for example:

• Wordle – here used by the New York Times for Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democrat National Convention

• A world map – visualising data on infant mortality rates in selected countries, created by the Times

• A bubble chart – such as the one below, created by us, which ranks US NFL teams by rushing yards (even though I’m not entirely sure what this is…)

According to an introductory post on the Time’s Open blog, the Visualization Lab is the first in a series of tools scheduled for release in the next few weeks both internally and for readers.

• Visualisation shows the topics New York Times journalists are writing about
• NYTimes people get together with NYTimes people
• David McCandless: Odds of dying from blogging?
• #MozFest – First draft of new Data Journalism Handbook written in 48 hours
• News numeracy: online tools for reporting numbers

NYTimes.com has developed a new video player to allow clips to be embedded in more sections of the site.

The player, which uses technology from Brightcove, will make video available on the homepage, individual article pages and on the site’s blogs, a release from the title said. The player also lets users send footage to social networks and bookmarking sites, including Digg, Facebook and LinkedIn.

As part of a video overhaul, the Times’ video library has been redesigned and a regularly updated list of ‘most viewed’ clips now features on the site.

“Demand for high-quality video is on the rise across the web from both our users and our advertisers,” said Nicholas Ascheim, vice president of product management for NYTimes.com, in the release.

“To meet this need, we have upgraded our technology, increased our production values and given video even more prominence across the site.”

According to the release, the Times produces 100 videos a month, while also featuring content from Reuters, CNBC, MSNBC and Bloggingheads.tv.

• ESPN in video content deal with AOL.com
• UK media sign up for new Virgin and Perform video player
• New York Times launches behind-the-scenes video feature
• Video: NYTimes’ Ann Derry on going multimedia – video is key
• Channel 4 News embeds video in news stories

The CEO of MediaNews Group, Dean Singleton, told the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association this week that his company is exploring outsourcing options, including the possibility of a single news desk for the company that could be offshore.

• PaidContent: AP Chairman interviewed – “We own the content”
• DNA 2008: from outsourcing to in-house, De Persgroep’s ad strategy
• Nieman Journalism Lab: Google developing micropayment system in pitch to newspapers
• A Guardian hotel? Publisher says it is ‘exploring options’
• Outsourcing newspaper interaction – on Topix

Student bloggers should take note of this one:  College Scholarships.org are giving away a $10,000 scholarship prize to a student blogger.

But before potential applicants get too excited, here’s the requirements you need to meet:

• ‘Your blog must contain unique and interesting information about you and/or things you are passionate about.’
• You must be U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
• You must be currently attending full-time in post-secondary education in the United States.
• If you win, you must be willing to allow the organisation to list your name and blog on their page.

Important dates:

• Accepting submissions: October 15 2008
• Submission deadline: October 30 2008

Full details here.

• NYU: List of 100 outstanding US journalists of last 100 years
• First annual Vimeo Awards offer $25,000 grant to overall winner
• Chance to submit questions to former Guardian digital director Emily Bell
• Media Release: Guardian Student Media Awards open for entries
• YouTube success for Deadline Press & Picture Agency

According to a press release from the Associated Press (AP), the agency will embark on its first continuous, live video news coverage on US election night, November 4.

The Big Issue: Election Results stream will feature a host of AP reports and will be streamed from 7pm (EST) on the agency’s online video network.

The stream will include views from 10 non-journalists, representing the electorate, who have been selected from AP’s collaboration with Yahoo to track the changing attitudes of 2,000 American voters during the presidential campaigns.

“We recognize that this is a once in a quarter century election,” said Michael Oreskes, AP managing editor for US News.

“Through the course of the year we have dug deeply into the dynamics of race and gender and economic fears that are suffusing the electorate. Our pre-election AP-Yahoo! News poll assessing the impact of racial attitudes on the electorate is being cited as the prime source on the issue this year. We plan to carry this work into our preparations for election night.”

• Live coverage dominates media’s inauguration plans
• US elections: CNN’s ‘magic map’ gets spoofed on Saturday Night Live
• Washington Post buys #election hashtag for midterms
• Hold the front page – women guest edit magazine
• Media release: AP supplying Super Tuesday results on a Google map

YouTube is teaming up with the US’s Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) to broadcast user-generated clips of video from around polling stations on election day.

In the Beet.tv interview below, Steve Grove, head of news and politics at the site, said Video Your Vote will compile the largest video library in history of what takes place in the election on November 4.

• New York Times: Behind the anonymous video nominated for a Polk Award
• NYTimes.com launches Polling Place Photo Project and asks users to submit
• Your chance to vote in the American election without citizenship
• #jpod: The top news stories from Journalism.co.uk, 6 May 2011
• Media release: AP supplying Super Tuesday results on a Google map