Author Archives: Sarah Marshall

About Sarah Marshall

I'm Journalism.co.uk's technology correspondent, recommending tools, apps and tips for journalists. My background is in broadcast and local news, having worked as a radio producer and newsreader and print journalist.

Tool of the week for journalists: Timeline

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Tool of the week: Timeline

What is it? A wizard to enable you to create and embed a timeline of curated content.

How is it of use to journalists? News sites often use a timeline for digital storytelling. This is a tool just released to enable you to do just that.

There are several examples, such as a Timeline of the Republican run-up.

Mashable compares Timeline to Storify, a tool that enables you to curate web content by dragging and dropping tweets and other media to create a story.

Mashable’s report states:

Timeline, created by Zach Wise, a multimedia journalist and journalism professor, was developed in partnership with the Knight News Innovation Lab at Northwestern University, where Wise teaches. The interactive tool allows users to generate timelines on the web by curating content from Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo, Google Maps and SoundCloud.

“The tools that already exist on the web are almost all either hard on the eyes or hard to use,” said Wise. “Timeline is an open-source, JavaScript and HTML/HTML 5 based tool that creates elegant timelines.”

Timeline does not offer the simplicity of Storify and although aimed at non-techies, it will require you to add some code to the head of your site and will take a quite a bit longer to create than a Storify.

One way you can create the timeline is by using a Google Doc. Timeline provides a template and you can simply add your links to the media.

For example, the below screenshot shows how we used the Google Doc template to create a timeline of some of the key phone-hacking moments, adding a Flickr photo, tweets and YouTube footage. N1 is a popular casino among players around the world. At the link you can find all the company’s bonus offers, promotions and promo codes. Players especially appreciate the casino for its juicy and varied games, convenient and clear mobile version of the casino. You can deposit and withdraw money in dozens of convenient ways.

 

 

Johnston Press delays reporting financial results as it negotiates with lenders

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Johnston Press has delayed the reporting of last year’s financial results while it negotiates with lenders.

The local news publisher of around 260 titles, which is based in Edinburgh, was due to report its full-year results for 2011 on Tuesday (3 April).

It is describing discussions with lenders as “constructive”.

In a statement JP says it is changing its preliminary results date to 25 April.

The company has been in constructive discussions with its lenders regarding the extension of its credit facilities for a further three years from their current maturity on 30 September 2012 and will provide a further update to the market as part of the preliminary results announcement.

Last week Ashley Highfield, who started as JP’s chief executive in November signaled that the publisher is adopting a “digital first” strategy.

During the same appearance, at the Guardian Media Summit, he stated that “every one of our newspapers is profitable”, but added that to “make more money out of digital we still have a long way to go”.

He said the local newspaper group aims for profit margins of 20 per cent.

BBC News launches ‘responsive’ site as 26% of hits come from mobile

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BBC News this week released a “responsive” site aimed at mobile which automatically scales to fit the device it is viewed on.

It can be viewed at m.bbc.co.uk/news.

More than a quarter of hits on BBC News come from mobile, including via apps and the mobile and desktop sites which are accessed via a browser, rather than desktop, according to a post on the Editors blog.

In an average week, for example, the BBC News site and apps are visited by about 9.7 million users on mobile and tablet devices worldwide, or about 26 per cent of total users to BBC News Online.

 

Writing on the blog, Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC News website, states:

This new site is designed, for now, mainly for simpler phones, although you should be able to access it on any device. It will gradually evolve as new features and functionality are added in coming weeks, to the point where it becomes the default browser for smartphones as well.

Kate Milner, mobile product manager for BBC News writes on the Internet blog:

We’ve made it easier for you to skim through the news headlines and view the ‘most read’ articles. Features and analysis stories are also now showcased throughout the site.

We’re improving our coverage of live news stories for all mobile users. The live page format offers short form updates related to big stories as they unfold, for example on stories like the Budget and global news events.

She goes on to say “over the coming weeks and months we’ll be adding more features and functionality”, including video for those devices that can display it.

 

Al Jazeera: Video filmed by Toulouse gunman did not meet code of ethics

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Al Jazeera English has said it will not broadcast footage filmed by a gunman who shot and killed seven people in southern France as it does not meet its code of ethics.

Three soldiers, three Jewish children and a rabbi died in the three shooting attacks in Toulouse and Montauban earlier this month. Gunman Mohammed Merah died following a 30-hour siege.

The video, said to have been filmed by Merah and named “Al Qaeda attaque la France” – meaning “Al-Qaeda attacks France”, was reportedly “sent on a USB memory stick to Al Jazeera’s office in Paris”.

The broadcaster said it has passed it on to police.

The report on Al Jazeera’s website states: “The video shows the attacks in chronological order, with audible gunshots and voices of the killer and the victims. But it does not show the face of the confessed murderer, Mohammed Merah, and it does not contain a statement from him.

The network on Tuesday said the video did not add any information that was not already in public domain.

The report adds that Zied Tarrouche, Al Jazeera’s Paris bureau chief, said that “the images were a bit shaky but of a high technical quality”.

He also said the video had clearly been manipulated after the fact, with religious songs and recitations of Quranic verses laid over the footage.

Al Jazeera also reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday urged television networks not to broadcast the video and that family members of the victims have asked that the footage not be aired.

Rusbridger: Guardian paywall ‘has not been ruled out’

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Part of a cartoon wall being created at the Guardian Open Weekend

Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, today asked readers what they were prepared to give back to the news group in return for journalism: money, time or data.

The first option, to ask readers to pay for an online subscription, “has not been ruled out”, Rusbridger told a session called “what might the Guardian’s future look like?” at the Guardian Open Weekend.

He suggested readers could give their time, perhaps volunteering to work shifts when they would moderate comments from fellow readers, a suggestion that is perhaps equally as surprising and seemingly unlikely as the idea of the Guardian putting up a paywall.

The third option Rusbridger proposed was that readers share personal data, such as their postcode.

All three options aim to make or save money, helping to compensate for the “£40 million-a-year which walked out the door” with the rapid decline in newspaper advertising.

You have to work on the basis that [revenue] is never going to come back.

Rusbridger added:

There are huge opportunities for journalism but it’s going to be a period of intense change.

In the same session, Andrew Miller, CEO of Guardian Media Group, explained the group is focussing on brand building, saying sustainability via digital relies on far more than “banners and buttons”.

Miller said:

The newspaper is fantastic product but is one of many products that people use to consume news.

Miller commented on the revenue generated by the Guardian’s Facebook app, launched in September – which has been downloaded by eight million users in six months and which saw Facebook users read 19 million articles via the app last month – saying “we only make a few hundred thousand pounds” via the app.

Earlier this week Journalism.co.uk reported that the Guardian app has generated more money than it cost to build.

Also speaking in the session was Janine Gibson, editor-in-chief of the Guardian US operation who seven months ago “took the Guardian-ness and put it in America”.

She talked about how the “audience is growing substantially” in the US.

We are trying to make [the audience] feel they are part of the international army of Guardian readers.

How the Guardian’s community of commentators contributes to the story

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A community of commentators provides the Guardian storytelling process with “cross-fertilisation from below the line”, David Shariatmadari, deputy editor of Comment is Free (CiF), the Guardian’s comment, analysis and discussion platform, told readers at the Guardian Open Weekend event today.

In a session called “digital revolution: how publishing is becoming collaborative”, Shariatmadari explained how 400 non-Guardian staff are commissioned to contribute to CiF every month.

In addition to commissioned commentators, a post-moderated commenting system,  and reposting content from niche blogs, the “opening processes” provided by social media results in “unearthing unexpected gems from the readership”.

“It’s difficult to say where the future of digital collaboration might go next,” Shariatmadari said, but feels “moderation will always be necessary”.

The Guardian trys to reduce the need by moderators by “managing the conversation”, with journalists, community coordinators and moderators joining the debate.

Laura Oliver, a community manager who is one of those “embedded” within the news room and areas such as CiF,  works to reduce the need for moderation by encouraging a healthy community of moderators.

Oliver sees her role as to represent and be the “voice of the reader”, encouraging a “two-way conversation” and broadening the overage.

Once a story is published, that’s not the end of it as that’s where the readers come in.

The Guardian wants to build a returning community, Oliver said, beyond asking readers to “send in pictures of snow”.

She gave the example of ensuring the team “connected” with those contributing from North Africa during the height of the uprisings and ensuring those commentators “would come back to us”.

She also highlighted the collaboration from readers and expert commentators during the daily blog on the Health and Social Care Bill, run during the debate around the amendments to the bill, the pause and its passage through parliament.

Claire Armitstead, literary editor of the Guardian, talked about crowdsourcing and call outs for reader responses and how they influence the sections such as Books.

What this new journalism has opened up is new ways of responding to criticism within the arts.

Dan Roberts, national editor of the Guardian, the chair of the debate, explained how his team started trying to capture witnesses to events, harnessing citizen journalists, and has evolved into opening up to publishing the daily newslist.

The idea is that publishing the list encourages feedback, Roberts said, “in the hope we get some advice and help”.

That way we know that we are chasing the things that readers care about.

 

Searchmetrics: Financial Times is news outlet with most Google+ followers

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The Financial Times has the largest number of followers on Google+, while the Daily Mail and Telegraph websites get the most Google +1 recommendations from readers, according to a release from analytics software firm Searchmetrics.

Searchmetrics has looked at the Google+ presence of 13 national newspapers which have “a combined total of 544,545 followers”.

This compares with a total of 1,284,674 followers (fans) on Facebook, currently the world’s biggest social network, for which all 13 newspaper sites maintain official pages.

The social network, which was launched nine months ago, has more that 100 million user accounts, according to Google.

At the time of the Searchmetrics study, which was carried out on 19 March:

372,159 people were recorded as following the Financial Times’ page on Google+ (or having the newspaper’s page in their Google+ ‘Circles’) beating the Guardian’s page which came second with 75,255 followers. The Independent came third with 60,195 people having its page in their Google+ circles.

In the release Searchmetrics points out that the Times, the Sun, Daily Express and Daily Star have not created a Google+ page for their news sites.

Searchmetrics found stories and content from the Daily Mail website received the most recommendations from people using the +1 button, with approximately 10,493 +1s a week on average.

Second came the Telegraph website with around 5,822 +1s a week and third was the Guardian with around 3,367 +1s a week.

While the Financial Times has the most followers it averages around 670 +1s a week, probably due to its metered paywall.

The most frequently +1’d article on Daily Mail site was “a story (with images) about how the majority of runway models meet the Body Mass Index (BMI) criteria for anorexia”. It had been +1’d 837 times.

This contrasts with the Mail’s most “liked” story of 2011, which saw more than 62,458 people click the Facebook like button. This story was headlined “the 9/11 rescue dogs: Portraits of the last surviving animals who scoured Ground Zero one decade on”. See our story on the top 10 Facebook stories of 2011 (we used Searchmetrics to gather the data).

Marcus Tober, Searchmetrics’ CTO and founder said in the release:

Google+ is still a relatively young social network but Google is very positive about its future and we’re already seeing a large number of people on the site, so it’s important for newspapers and other big brands to get in early and have a strong presence on the network.

Frequently +1’d articles from national newspapers:

DailyMail.co.uk, 12 Jan 2012, 837 +1s
‘Most runway models meet the BMI criteria for anorexia’, claims plus-size magazine in powerful comment on body image in the fashion industry’

Telegraph.co.uk,  18 Nov 2011, 1110 +1s
EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration

Guardian.co.uk, Comment is Free, 25 Nov 2011, 1,142 +1s
The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy

Tool of the week for journalists: freeDive, to create a searchable database

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Tool of the week: freeDive

What is it? A wizard to turn a Google spreadsheet into a searchable, embeddable interactive

How is it of use to journalists? This is a fantastic tool from the Knight Digital Media Center, based at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

freeDive is a wizard that allows you to take a Google spreadsheet, turn it into an interactive database, embed it into a news story and let readers to explore the data.

A word of warning: the embed code created is mainly JavaScript which some platforms restrict.

WordPress users can download a plugin such as Artiss Code Embed which works with WordPress security settings, allowing you to embed JavaScript.

The tool generates a simple embed code and also has an option to allow you to download the HTML, upload it onto your server and use an iframe.

Here is one we made earlier. This searchable database shows the ABC-audited web traffic figures for regional news groups.

[iframe src=”http://www.journalism.co.uk/uploads/abcembedtest.html” height=”650px”]

 

Social predicted to overtake search as Guardian traffic driver

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The Guardian’s Facebook app has been downloaded eight million times since it was launched six months ago, seeing around 40,000 downloads a day.

Speaking at the Guardian Changing Media Summit, Tanya Cordrey, director of digital development at Guardian News and Media, said the news outlet has been “blown away by the results”.

The “frictionless sharing” app works by readers opting in to share all articles they read with their Facebook friends, generating more traffic for the news site with “no editorial curation”.

She later explained that the Guardian has generated more money through ad revenue from the app than the news organisation spent on building it.

Six months ago Google provided 40 per cent of the Guardian’s traffic. The launch of the Facebook app resulted in a “seismic shift” with social exceeding search as a driver on several occasions in February (see above photograph).

Cordrey predicted:

It’s only a matter of time until social overtakes search for the Guardian.

She said that the audience becomes more global everyday, providing “an amazing opportunity to learn about this new audience”.

It’s the audience we want to learn about rather than the platform [Facebook]

Readers are in “habitual grazing mode”, Cordrey said, traffic peaking in “the middle of the afternoon”.

Addressing those who believe the app has implications for privacy, Cordrey said “we are acutely aware of the critics” but readers are not being driven away or removing content they have read from their Facebook timeline.

“Once people have it, they use it,” Cordrey said, explaining “only a tiny percentage of people” have taken up the option of hiding their reading habits.

Earlier in the day Karla Geci, strategic partner development for Facebook said that it would be “just weird and awkward to read a whole article inside of Facebook”, saying Facebook’s role is enabling “distribution and discovery” rather than taking traffic away from publishers.

Asking herself if frictionless sharing “is creepy”, Geci said:

People are quite interested in being an influencer in their circles. Sharing what you are reading is something you did any way.

Guardian launches Streetstories, an app for King’s Cross

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The Guardian has launched Streetstories, an iPhone and Android app, providing audio stories based on the phone’s location.

The app is another Guardian project focusing on social, local mobile and is launched the day after the public release of n0tice, another move by the news organisation into the SoLoMo space.

Launched ahead of the Guardian’s Open Weekend event this weekend, the Streetstories app provides a guide to King’s Cross,the area of London where King’s Place, the Guardian building where the event will take place, is located.

Francesca Panetta, the app’s creator, has blogged about it.

Streetstories is a free app for iPhone and Android which triggers audio relevant to your location – your smartphone knows where you are, and plays the stories automatically. The way the app works is you plug in your headphones, start up the ‘autoplay’ mode and put your smartphone in your pocket. The app will find where you are and start playing the clips, so you don’t need to press any buttons, just wander anywhere in the area and your route will create your own narrative