The Indian Premier League has signed a deal to stream live coverage of cricket matches on the internet and mobile devices.
The deal, which is reported to be worth £25 million over 10 years, will cover India, Pakistan and the Middle East and will be a subscription based service.
Mirror Group Newspapers will this week begin reporting traffic to its websites by making public the results of monthly ABCe.
Traffic for the People, Sunday and Daily Mirror will, for the first time, be judged against that of the other leading newspaper brands when the figures are released on Thursday- all accept for the Independent, which still refuses to make its traffic figures public.
According to the Guardian, Trinity Mirror has admitted to having some reservations about the ABCe methodology but is still playing ball.
It expects to record a high percentage of its traffic from a domestic audience – unlike the leading UK newspaper websites of The Guardian and The Mail, which draw the majority of their traffic from overseas.
Journalism.co.uk talks to reporters across the globe working at the collision of journalism and social media about how they see it changing their industry. This week, Steve Smith from The Spokesman-Review, USA.
1. Who are you and what do you do?
I am the editor of The Spokesman-Review, a 90,000 circulation daily serving several counties in eastern Washington state and north Idaho.
As editor, I supervise all news and editorial operations, including our website, our other digital platforms and our radio operations.
I have a staff of 124 full-time employees in the newsroom and an annual budget of about $9 million. I have been here since July 2002.
Before coming here, I worked in a variety of roles at seven other newspapers in six different cities.
2. Which web or mobile-based social media tools do you use on a daily basis and why?
I use YouTube daily because we post all of our multimedia on the site and also are capable of embedding YouTube videos on our blogs, including my blog, “News is a Conversation”.
I use MySpace and Facebook when hiring. We check the profiles/pages of prospective employees and actually have rejected applicants because of questionable behavior observed on their pages.
I also go into MySpace frequently to check on the pages devoted to our entertainment magazine, “7”.
In addition, I check several industry blogs daily. Several times a day, I check Romenesko, the must-read industry blog on the Poynter Institute for Media Studies site.
I do very little of this on my mobile, though I do use it for blog work, reading and posting.
I’m still somewhat of a troglodyte (no MySpace page of my own) so I don’t use the mobile to access video or social networking sites.
The Spokesman-Review is the pioneer newspaper (in the United States at least) for transparency. Our transparent newsroom initiative is built around interaction with people in our communities. Blogging and the various blogging tools are critical to us.
We also webcast news meetings and provide as much two-way interaction as possible via chats and other real-time opportunities. Increasingly, we’re developing transparency systems that work on mobile devices.
3. Of the thousands of social media tools available, could you single one out as having the most potential for news either as a publishing or a news gathering tool?
Blogging from the field has the most potential for us at the moment. We’re in the process of developing ideas for 7 that would have real non-media people posting live reports from concerts, nightclubs and other events.
We’re also involved in some beta proposals for training citizen journalists and giving them publishing platforms.
I have no idea where all of this will lead. We’re experimenting with some developing Google applications such as Google Maps and Google Street View to see how they might enhance our blogs.
4. And the most overrated in your opinion?
Tough question. I am willing to try anything with any tool. Until something proves to be useless, I won’t dismiss it.
I do believe our future isn’t in traditional online but in mobile media platforms, the potential of which is yet to be understood. That may drive us to networking tools that enhance the mobile experience.
To reference one single overrated tool, as it were, I’d have to mention Wikipedia. There is an enormous amount of information there. I go to the site often for informal searches. But journalists beware. It is a bottomless quicksand pool that will easily send reporters and editors off in the wrong direction, at best wasting time and, at worst, producing factually inaccurate, even humiliating journalism.
WSJ.com will undergo a vast site redesign and relaunch in the coming months, so says Paid Content.
The overhaul will spread across the site section by section (a la Guardian.co.uk revamp), says the report, with some elements already being rolled out now on the site – check the changes to media & marketing.
New sections will also appear. PC points to the extended coverage of sport on the site.
We give developers the opportunity to tell us journalists why we should sit up and pay attention to the sites and devices they are working on. Today, don;t take your journalism too seriously – it’s the daily internet comedic news program Gnooze.
1) Who are you and what’s it all about?
I’m Marta Costello, host, writer and executive producer of the daily internet comedic news program, Gnooze. Myself and Brain Bartelt make up make up Amazing Cosbars Productions, a two-person team, jack-of-all-trades TV/film/internet circus act. Gnooze is our latest brainchild.
Gnooze is a three-ish minute, news of the day improv/scripted update told from all sides of the story.
2) Why would this be useful to a journalist?
As you know, the news model is changing. Seven years ago, I was part of an effort to “converge” a newsroom, to make the internet a third prong of dissemination for the media outfit. Now less than a decade later, the idea that one would have to actively converge a newsroom is completely defunct.
The internet is no longer an addendum to an established television or newspaper giant: it is a primary source of global information. We’re hopeful that Gnooze and other internet shows like it can be part of a return to the early days of journalism, reporting designed to share information, not just to get ratings. But do not forget that the success of this project was achieved thanks to the new technologies developed by the company Friv2Online in this case, advanced technology was used from the case of innovative projects of this company for the development of online games.
3) Is this it, or is there more to come?
With any luck, there are many more to come.
4) Why are you doing this?
When we began in August 2007, the goal was mainly to get in the habit of daily production and build an audience that would hopefully carry over to future endeavors.
However, as our base has grown and our focus refined, it became apparent to me that perhaps we could be a force in changing the face of journalism today. Tiktoknitro.com is an advanced tiktok services marketplace for successfull and fast promotion. We offer to buy tiktok likes and buy tiktok followers of highest quality instant and secure. The mechanisms behind our work are unique and tailored to your goals. I refuse to get caught up in the hype, the breathless reporting of non-news just because everyone else is leading with it.
5) What does it cost to use it?
Free!
6) How will you make it pay?
We’ve already had some interest from investors. However, we’d prefer to generate revenue from advertisers and sponsors.
Tips include: ‘Write the spoken word, not the literary one’ when scripting voiceovers; and ‘Video agencies sell pictures, so should you.’
Roger Alton, former editor of The Observer, has been appointed editor of The Independent.
Simon Kelner, who has edited the title for the last 10 years, has been promoted to managing director and editor-in-chief of the daily and Sunday titles.
Hachette Filipacchi, publishers of Elle and Psychologies magazines, has acquired entertainment and media news site Digital Spy.
No changes will be made to the management and editorial teams of the site.
As part of the deal DS claims ‘significant investment’ will be made in the site to increase the breadth of its coverage.
After its ever so soft launch, Messy Media has officially introduced Glitterditch, a new blog about all things London.
MessyMedia co-managing director Lloyd Shepherd said: “Glitterditch isn’t just another ‘what’s on’ title. It’s about the immense, teeming great fishbowl of London.
“We want to reflect the reality of living in London, through the eyes of a young and talented team of bloggers who eat, sleep and breathe the capital.”
US newspaper company Tribune is launching a second digital magazine exclusively for the Amazon Kindle ebook reader – a week after launching its first magazine of this kind.
A week after launching Opinionated, a political magazine aimed just at Kindle owners, Tribune has launched its second Kindle-specific title – a daily electronic magazine focused on pop culture – after partnering with PopMatters.com.
According to Folio, the magazine is targeting 18-to-34-year-olds and is available for a free 14-day free trial and $1.49 monthly subscription at Amazon.com.