Pinterest has overtaken Twitter as a traffic driver to websites, according to research by Shareaholic, a company that creates content sharing tools for publishers.

This podcast takes a look at how news organisations are using the online pinboard and social network for collating and sharing links.

It hears from Emily Steel, a social media editor at the Wall Street Journal, Carla Buzasi, editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post UK and Janet Aronica, head of marketing for Shareaholic.

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

• #jpod in depth: Huffington Post lands in the UK
• Huffington Post UK’s Facebook app clocks up 20,000 users
• #followjourn @CarlaBuzasi – Carla Buzasi/editor-in-chief
• #jpod: How journalists and publishers can best use Foursquare
• #jpod: How Apple’s Newsstand is revolutionising the publishing industry

Beet.tv has an interview with Ann Derry, editorial director for video and television for the New York Times and Shawn Bender, editorial director for video for the Wall Street Journal online. They explain “why readers click the play button” to watch videos on the two news sites.

Bender feels readers click play in order to feel a connection.

I think that there is a feeling of excitement about the news that you don’t get in the static environment of print that you can get in video.

Derry says that both news sites have had to educate their readers in order to consume news in video form online.

We’ve had to train our users, both at the Journal and at the Times, that if you click on something you get a good experience.

Bender goes on to say that concise videos where the reader/viewer can learn two or three points are the most successful. Derry adds that news video should offer the reader/viewer a quicker, more “efficient” way of accessing the story than if they had chosen to read it as text.

The Beet.tv video is at this link and below.

• Video: NYTimes’ Ann Derry on going multimedia – video is key
• AP pushing 250 stories a week through its newly launched YouTube channel
• NBC provides code to embed news shows
• News sites can remove YouTube logo for embedded video
• Citizen journalist videos through op-ed pages of NYTimes.com

Who? Zach Seward

Where? Zach is social media editor of the Wall Street Journal

Twitter? @zseward

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips, we are recommending journalists to follow online too. Recommended journalists can be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to rachel at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

• #followjourn: @zlwise Zach Wise/interactive producer, associate professor and Timeline creator
• #followjourn – @bydanielvictor Daniel Victor/social media editor
• #followjourn – @NateLanxon Nate Lanxon/Editor
• #followjourn – @duncanhooper Duncan Hooper/managing editor
• #followjourn – @sookio Sue Keogh/editor

The Wall Street Journal is one example of a news organisation which uses the check-in app Foursquare to engage with a mobile and social online community.

Last month the WSJ used the platform to list hurricane evacuation centres in New York.

In this podcast technology correspondent Sarah Marshall speaks to social media editor of the WSJ Zach Seward about the newspaper’s experiments in using Foursquare and to Eric Friedman, director of business development at Foursquare, about how journalists and publishers can best use the platform.

Sign up to our iTunes podcast feed for future audio.

• #jpod: The week’s top stories from Journalism.co.uk, 5 November 2010
• #jpod: The week’s top stories from Journalism.co.uk, 17 December 2010
• #jpod: The week’s biggest media stories on Journalism.co.uk, 20 August 2010
• #jpod: The week’s biggest news stories from Journalism.co.uk, 27 August 2010
• #jpod: The week’s biggest news stories from Journalism.co.uk, 3 September 2010

Rumoured details of the yet-to-be-launched New York Times ‘paywall’ are starting to emerge, with the Wall Street Journal reporting today on possible subscription plans, such as $20 a month for a digital bundle package or less than half of that for a web-only deal.

Under the new system, expected to be rolled out next month, the Times will sell an Internet-only subscription for unlimited access to the Times site, as well as a broader digital package that bundles the Times online with its application on the iPad, according to a person familiar with the matter. Subscribers to the print edition of the paper will get full online privileges at no additional cost, Times executives have said.

Speaking at the World Editors Forum last year, New York Times Company president and CEO Janet Robinson said the site will remain part of the “open web ecosystem” and will have millions of users referred to it by third-party sites by employing a “first click free” strategy, where readers can view one page on the site for free before being prompted to register or subscribe.

• NYTimes.com mobile site records 600% traffic growth in 2007
• Forbes: Times and NY Times paywall figures compared
• WSJ confirms paid-for access to news on mobile
• Should we ‘pay the wall’ to maintain quality journalism?
• Confirmed: New York Times website will introduce FT-style charging system

The four men imprisoned for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl were not present at his beheading, according to a new report from the Pearl Project.

The report, the result of an investigation carried out by a team of US journalists and students and spanning more than three years, also accuses Pakistani authorities of knowingly relying on false evidence and ignoring important leads during the prosecution. It claims that US forensic evidence known as “vein-matching” points to al-Qaida commander Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to having killed Pearl after being arrested in connection with the World Trade Centre attacks.

Pearl was abducted in January 2002 while researching a story on Islamist militancy. In February a video of his execution was delivered to US officials in Pakistan.

Full story on AP at this link.

• NYT: President Obama signs press freedom act named after Daniel Pearl
• Daniel Pearl awards open for entries
• RSF: Two Egyptian bloggers detained at secret locations
• Al Jazeera: Video filmed by Toulouse gunman did not meet code of ethics
• Reporters Without Borders: Journalist killed in Brazil on World Press Freedom day

Think being a newspaper reporter is the best job in the world? Statistically it would seem, in the US at least, that is not the case. This annual list by CareerCast rating 200 jobs based on income, working environment, stress, physical demands and job outlook, places the newspaper reporter at 188.

The list, which used data from the Labor Department, US Census and its researchers own knowledge, can also be found on the Wall Street Journal website.

• Newspaper reporter: fifth worst job? US careers study seems to think so
• Wall Street Journal: New York Times to start charging for online in January
• TheDailyBeast: Ex-WSJ assistant publisher on paid online content – myths and facts
• NY Times reporter resigns following plagiarism accusations
• International Herald Tribune: Wall Street Journal website redesign

The Wall Street Journal reports that Gannett Company has told all its non-union employees within its US community newspaper unit that they will be required to take a week-long furlough in the first quarter “due to continuing revenue declines in that division”.

Gannett executives said the unpaid time off is in response to revenues that remain short of where they were a year ago.

The WSJ.com adds that president of the company’s community publishing Bob Dickey said in a memo that this was “an option I had hoped we could avoid”.

See full report at this link

• Newsquest ad revenue drops almost 8% but digital revenue is on the rise
• Gannett reorders its community publishing division
• Editor&Publisher: House-swaps for furloughs
• New figures show ad revenue decline slowing at Johnston Press and Trinity Mirror
• Bloomberg: US publisher Gannett trialing paid-content model

Talks are underway at Google to launch a digital newsstand which will include apps from media companies available on devices running Android software, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

Google hopes to launch it in part to provide a more consistent experience for consumers who want to read periodicals on Android devices, and to help publishers collect payment for their apps, these people say.

Google has been in discussion about the potential venture with publishers including Condé Nast and Hearst Corporation, the report adds.

• Eight lessons for publishers from comScore’s new report on mobile
• BBC’s plan for mobile news apps heavily criticised
• Android app update allows users to purchase Kindle newspapers
• NYTimes.com: Publishers to launch online magazine newsstand
• Economist launches app into Android Market

The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that Thomson Reuters had announced a 66 per cent increase in third-quarter profit, rising from $167 million (19 cents per share) in the same period last year to $277 million, or 32 cents a share.

But within the division which includes its news service profit fell 2.7 per cent, the report adds.

Based on the company’s year-to-date performance and improved momentum, Thomson Reuters now sees revenue being “flat to slightly up” this year, rather than “flat to slightly down.”

In the markets division, which includes the Reuters news service and sales-and-trading operations and makes up a majority of the company’s revenue, revenue edged down 0.5 per cent, to $1.85 billion, while profit fell 2.7 per cent. Revenue in the segment increased 1 per cent before the impact of currency translations.

• NYT second-quarter operating profit more than twice 2009 figure
• Future websites attracting over 11m unique users per month
• Trinity Mirror reports 10 per cent drop in advertising revenue
• FT: NY Times losses further highlight decline for print
• Mail Online helps DMGT to significant increase in digital revenue

The Wall Street Journal’s latest revenue statistics, detailed in a staff memo from Dow Jones & Company CEO Les Hinton (published on PoynterOnline), show an increase in digital ad revenue of more than 29 per cent.

According to the figures, the publication has recorded year-on-year growth across all platforms in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2011.

Print and online revenues for the publication are reportedly up by more than 17 per cent on the previous year’s figures for the same period, while total print advertising revenue increased by more than 21 per cent.

Print circulation revenue was also reportedly up more than 9 percent, or 13 per cent when including digital.

But while in his memo Hinton makes a comparison to competitor the New York Times Company’s release of revenue statistics last week, paidContent clarifies the potential differences of each in its own report on the figures.

Hinton specifically refers to the New York Times Company’s own figures “as a basis of comparison.” He pointed out that the NYTCo forecast last week that online ad sales would be up 14 percent for the quarter, while print ad revenue would be down five percent. It’s worth noting, however, that those figures include the NYTCo as a whole, while the figures Hinton cites for his company seem to refer only to the performance of the Wall Street Journal.

• NYT second-quarter operating profit more than twice 2009 figure
• US newspaper ad revenue decline slows
• Let your mind wander: the Economist’s new campaign
• FT: NY Times losses further highlight decline for print
• Newsquest ad revenue drops almost 8% but digital revenue is on the rise

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has come under fire for making a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association (RGA), the largest corporate donation to the RGA in this cycle. According to Politico’s Keith Hagey, it is common for companies to give to both the Republicans and Democrats, “both to hedge their bets and to maintain a sense of even-handedness”. But this donation, writes Hagey, “isn’t business as usual – in either size or style”.

And it’s got media analysts and political pros wondering just what News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch – the man behind Fox News and the Wall Street Journal — is up to now.

News Corp., which owns Fox News and the Wall Street Journal in the US, has denied that the donation relates to the editorial activity of its media outlets.

News Corporation believes in the power of free markets, and the RGA’s pro-business agenda supports our priorities at this most critical time for our economy,” News Corp. Spokesman Jack Horner said. He told the Washington Post: “It’s patently false that a corporate donation would have any bearing on our news-gathering activities at Fox News or any other of our properties.

Full story at this link…

• Talking Biz News: Dow Jones restructuring
• Politico: News Corp made second $1m donation to Republican group
• EditorsWeblog: Emerging nations favour mobile internet access
• paidContent: WSJ ready to start charging for mobile apps
• FT.com: Murdoch considers charging for online news, developing e-reader

The Wall Street Journal is inviting users of its iPad app to share their views on the device – and they are offering $200 for their time.

According to an email published by the Business Insider, the news organisation sent out invitations to New York users to take part in group discussions running from 16-17 August

But it looks like all the spaces may already have been snapped up:

Now the bad news: the slots have already been filled, or at least that’s what we were told after completing a quick survey gauging our eligibility. It’s also possible they just don’t want us.

See the full post here…

• Independent online publishers: what’s your experience of UK media law?
• Liverpool Daily Post surveys online readers for GP investigation
• Brazilian newspaper to go online-only after 119 years in print
• CnetNews: Flickr users invited by Getty to join collection
• NCTJ survey on multimedia training still open for comments

There has been plenty of excited coverage of the playground spat between the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times started by the Journal’s move into general interest metro coverage. The Journal’s news section, Greater New York, launched yesterday, and the Times war committee responded quickly with a memo to subscribers reminding them just how great the paper’s New York section is, and has been for so much longer than the Journal’s johnny-come-lately.

Harold Evans has taken up a ring-side seat at the Daily Beast to take score as the bout progresses over the week.

So far the whole thing seems, unsurprisingly, to have revolved about print, but Wired’s Eliot Van Buskirk claims the war is “really about digital”.

The spat appears to be about local New York coverage, but really, it’s about both organizations’ digital future (…) By cutting ad rates and suddenly going after the same non-financial local stories as the Times, Murdoch is waging a good, old-fashioned newspaper war in the traditional sense. But the spoils this time will be the hearts and minds of a digital audience faced with far more choices than consumers of print.

Full story at this link…

• Wired gets ‘wired’ with Adobe for iPad edition
• New York Magazine: Weigh-in for New York Times and Wall Street Journal
• NYTimes blog to be published in print
• Wired for iPad edition set for summer launch
• iPad news: would you pay more?

The Wall Street Journal has followed in the Financial Times’ footsteps by teaming up with Foursquare. As part of a new focus on New York City, FourSquare users who ‘check in’ to a location around the city will receive a link from the Journal relating to that location.

Some media observers have been critical of the partnership, focusing on the addition of a few new WSJ-related badges that Foursquare users can now add to their collection. That might seem like an underwhelming feature for a media giant like the Journal to add, but the addition of location-specific, hard news stories as tips is a very intriguing experiment that could point to a big new future for news. It also looks like a lot of fun.

Full story at this link…

• Location-based restaurant reviews
• Canada’s Metro to add Foursquare feature to news sites
• Google News search gets local
• Wall Street Journal uses Foursquare list feature for hurricane evacuation centres
• Eastern Daily Press providing content through Foursquare