Tag Archives: digital editor

Telegraph’s Ed Roussel on outsourcing: Newspapers need to focus on what they do best

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Confirming the Telegraph’s plans to outsource some of its sub-editing operation to Australia in comments on Jeff Jarvis’ blog, Ed Roussel, digital editor of Telegraph Media Group, made the following statement:

“Reducing the cost of manufacturing and distribution is an imperative for any newspaper group that is determined to remain profitable, as we are (…) The principle holds true on the digital side. ITN creates our video content, providing quality and value that we would struggle to generate internally; Brightcove handles our video distribution; Google powers our search; Escenic provides our web publishing tool; we use software developers in Bulgaria and India.

“Newspaper-web companies should focus internal resource on what they do best: creating premium editorial content.”

Similar to Jarvis’ own mantra of ‘do what you do best and link to the rest’, Roussel’s ‘outsource the rest’ makes sense in a journalism industry where partnerships and collaboration, especially online, seem to be the way forward.

So, outsourcing – not all bad?

Telegraph.co.uk redesign: engagement above traffic?

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Speaking at yesterday’s preview of the Telegraph.co.uk redesign, both chief information officer Paul Cheesbrough and digital editor Edward Roussel said the new site was aimed at ‘deeper engagement’ with users.

Both declined to comment on whether the new site would bring success in terms of ABCe figures, even suggesting the amount of content/page views per user was more important at this stage than an increased numbers of visitors.

“If we have doubled the amount of content that each person is consuming [by the end of the year] then that’s great,” said Roussel.

The current average for the site is 16 page views per person per month, he added.

A raft of improvements have been made in the new design to address the issue of engagement. Firstly improved search and navigation features to help users find the content they are after more quickly and keep them on the site.

Changes to the site’s servers have also been implemented with a series of international servers set up so the experience of accessing the site is the same wherever you are, Cheesbrough explained.

These changes were made necessary after ‘power outages’ on the site last year, which brought Telegraph.co.uk down for prolonged periods. In contrast the site is now the fastest news site behind the BBC, Cheesbrough claimed.

One of the most significant changes for me – and the one which lends itself most immediately to both engagement and traffic goals – is an increase in embedded video.

Following hot on the heels of the BBC and FT, who have both made the move to embedded video, the new Telegraph.co.uk will embed its video content within articles across the site and lose the standalone Telegraph TV player box on the homepage.

The BBC’s Pete Clifton told Journalism.co.uk previously that the conversion rate – the number of people reading the text article and viewing the video footage – was around 40 per cent for embedded video and only 2 per cent when video was housed in a separate player.

Initial trials of embedding on Telegraph.co.uk have produced similarly positive results, said Cheesbrough, with a 30 per cent conversion rate for embedded videos compared to a 3 per cent rate for Telegraph TV.

It’s a logical progression that boosts views and keeps the user engaged for longer, and is part of what the team behind the Telegraph redesign refer to as ‘the concept of the article as the homepage’.

This shows an awareness that the homepage is no longer the main point of entry – around half of the site’s traffic comes through aggregators. Putting as much effort into the design and accessibiilty of every page of your site, as most publications put into their homepage, could well be a winning strategy for both traffic and engagement.

Behind the scenes: Telegraph.co.uk’s redesign

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Journalism.co.uk was given a sneak preview today of Telegraph.co.uk’s redesign plans. It’s a work in progress, but the revamped news, sport, and travel sections, as well as a new homepage, are set for launch in the next week.

Below are some preview images of the new site:

Homepage

Note the new horizontal navigation bar, the addition of a lifestyle tab and the replacement of a Telegraph TV box with embedded video players across the site.

More prominence has been given to comment content. In addition the bottom half and footer of the page will not be used as ‘a dumping ground’, but instead will be a flexible space featuring varied multimedia material. Eventually this space could carry personalised content based on the individual user.

Screenshot of redesigned Telegraph.co.uk homepage

Article page

The design team behind the new site told me they wanted greater consistency between articles and sections to improve navigation across the site.

Individual RSS feeds have also been added for sections and specific topics e.g. at the bottom of this article there’s a feed specifically for Champions League football. erotic massage albany ny

A list of links to articles and other content of relevance has been added on the right hand side of the page – part of a design aimed at seeing every article page as a potential homepage from a user’s point of view, Ed Roussel, digital editor of Telegraph.co.uk, said

Screenshot of new look Telegraph.co.uk article page

First impressions?

Evening Leader launches online courtroom project

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North Wales Media title the Evening Leader is offering readers the opportunity to play judge and jury in an online court on its website.

The aim of the Your Justice project, which has been launched with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in Wrexham, is to raise awareness of the processes involved in the CPS.

Here’s how it works:

  • Real lawyers present their cases on a fictional court case to the reader in a video
  • Viewers are given legal advice and will then be asked to give their sentence
  • Finally a real magistrate will appear and explain what their decision would be.

“This kind of working partnership shows great common sense by the CPS – they can use our website’s traffic to get their message across and we can use their content to add more value to our site,” Christian Dunn, digital editor for the Evening Leader, said in a press release about the project.

Gap year blogger ends Guardian blog after ‘hate mail hell’

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(Update – vote in our online poll: was the Guardian right to close Gogarty’s blog? Brief Log-in required.)

‘Hate mail hell of gap-year blogger’ – a headline from the Observer relating to Max Gogarty, whose first blog post on Guardian.co.uk about his gap year plans received a less than warm reception from readers.

The forthright criticisms left on Gogarty’s post were aimed less at the young writer’s style and more at his links with travel section contributor Paul Gogarty – Max’s dad – and as a result Guardian policy.

Since comments on the original post were closed, the paper’s travel editor Andy Pietrasik, digital editor Emily Bell and Observer columnist Rafael Behr have all reacted to the backlash – each trying to add a measure of calm to the situation.

The ‘hate mail hell’ to which the Observer piece refers lasted for around five days, but I can’t help but think the publisher might have expected this. Surely the accusations of nepotism made could have been foreseen, as could criticism of what value such a blog contributes to the section?

Furthermore, much of the criticism centres around the blog vs professional blog debate, arguing that the writing offered did not match up with the professional content elsewhere on the site.

As such I feel for Max – I don’t know how I would react to such a torrent of online abuse, especially as most of this abuse should be levelled at the publisher and not the blogger in question.

This was an editorial error by the site – neither reader nor writer are satisfied with the outcome – yet the paper’s commentators don’t own up to this, condemning this as a case of ‘online mob justice’.Yes, some of the comments are an attempt to outdo the last with their mercilessness, but the fact that over 500 were left on this blog should set alarm bells ringing.

Do the comments lose their credibility because they are largely angry (and yes, sometimes borderline abusive)? If so, why allow so many through the moderation process in the first place?

These are your readers – telling you exactly what they think – best to listen to them and not label them a mob.