Author Archives: Oliver Luft

About Oliver Luft

Oliver Luft was news editor of Journalism.co.uk from 2006-8.

Media lecturer bans use of Google and Wikipedia by students

A story from close to home. Brighton’s beloved Argus (hot with media stories in the last month, what with the homeless newsreader and all) reports that Professor Tara Brabazon, from the University of Brighton, has banned her students from turning to elements of the web for their research.

Professor Brabazon’s ire has been caused by what she dubs ‘ the University of Google’, students repeating the first thing they find on the internet without the necessary candor to double check facts and the validity of statements.

She said too many students took the quick fix of turning to the internet for easily obtainable information, adding that poor use of technology by students was encouraging shallow ideas and hampering the development important values of research and analysis.

“The education world has pursued new technology with an almost evangelical zeal and it is time to take a step back and give proper consideration of how we use it,” she told the the paper.

Is Gawker losing it?

Gawker has been enduring a more tumultuous time than usual over the last couple of months, topped by reports this week that its Gizmodo blogger, Richard Blakeley, was banned from CES for attempting a prank to scupper sections of the event.

New York Times asked if the site had ‘Jumped the Snark‘ and reported that traffic for November was down. In the wake of this dip, boss Nick Denton placed himself as managing editor replacing Choire Sicha  as other leading editors left:

“There are certainly signs that Gawker, delivering a daily dose of gossip and commentary about the news business and selected celebrities since 2002, is in the midst of a particularly intense period of turmoil, which has led to a slide in its once-hypnotic influence on the news media world.”

More here.

When the press was paper, there were simple and understandable ways for everyone to earn money for a publishing house: advertising on the pages and selling a newspaper or magazine. Now that everything has gone online, even many well-known magazines do not know how to make money from online media. One of the ways, of course, is a subscription, but you can also earn money in affiliate marketing with sites like 1Win partners and monetize traffic. Also, many use the model of free articles + paid exclusive, which also works well.

Die Zeit newspaper opens free archive of 250,000 articles

German newspaper Die Zeit has opened a free online archive of over 250,000 stories dating back to 1946.

Since being launched June, 2007, the newspaper’s online archive had only stretched back to 1995.

German online media watchers Onlinejournalismus.de wrote that the moves to extend of the range of the archive and make it free for users to access might be in reaction to earlier reports that Spiegel will open its own free archive later in the spring. online casino nz currency

WSJ.com to open up some premium content

The WSJ.com is removing the paywall to some of its premium paid-for editorials, commentary and opinion pieces.

The OpinionJournal site, which used to offer for free certain cherry-picked editorials and new web-only content, will now be ‘offering all of our editorials and op-eds, video interviews and commentary’.

According to the Guardian, the move could be a precursor to new owner Rupert Murdoch scrapping the subscription funding model that currently exists as it plans to launch a new free access website for all its editorials, op-ed pieces, video interviews and commentary.

Yahoo to open up mobile web pages to developers

Yahoo will let widget developers run riot over its new mobile web platform, according to the Media Info Centre blog.

It also reported that Yahoo! has also unveiled a redesigned home page for mobile phones that lets users decide the content they want highlighted on the page.

It also released an upgrade to its Go software to aid surfing on mobile phones and to enable Yahoo to show ads with graphics.

AP unveils tool to allow affiliates to upload news to its online video network

The Associated Press has launched a new tool for affiliate news sites to upload to its online video network and make money on their own content.

Featuring exclusive AP content, the AP’s Online Video Network serves some 1,900 newspaper, television and radio sites nationwide. AP affiliates can now control a “local” tab within their player and fill it with their own video using a web-based uploading tool developed by Microsoft.

Affiliates have the option of selling local advertising against the content they upload, or allowing Microsoft to oversee the process.

Media Post reported.