Tag Archives: search engine

Lost Remote: Google Wave in the newsroom

Steve Safran from Lost Remote adds a reflective take on Google Wave to the comment mounting up about it’s demise. According to Safran, the platform’s processes could be mirrored in the newsroom.

Back in September 2009, I wrote in the AR&D Newsletter: “Imagine starting a wave in your office about a news topic. People can constantly add to it, putting in the latest pictures, video and information. The assignment desk can contribute its findings and the reporters and producers have instant access, as well as the ability to add more. We don’t yet know how newsrooms can fully take advantage of this tool (and isn’t that wonderful?) but we do believe it will be a powerful way to have the entire staff work together.”

I was wrong.

Despite the product failing, says Safran, the experimentation should be admired.

See his full post here…

Shane Richmond: Why the Drudge Report hasn’t ‘lost its edge’

Shane Richmond responds to last week’s New York Observer article on the allegedly waning influence of the Drudge Report.

Looking at its audience, impact and design, Richmond argues that the news aggregator, which broke the media blackout on Price Harry’s deployment to Afghanistan, still has its edge:

“For his audience, Drudge is a kind of search engine but one that has already answered their question,” he writes.

“It’s a simple idea, executed brilliantly. The Drudge Report is a page of search results, handpicked for an audience its author knows well.”

Full post at this link…

Journalism Daily: AutoTrader tips, Technorati’s ‘original content’ and the online anonymity debate

A daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site. You can also sign up to our e-newsletter and subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

News and features:

Ed’s picks:

Tip of the day:

#FollowJourn:

On the Editor’s Blog:

Google’s Spotlight – highlighting journalism of ‘lasting value’

A new feature has been added to Google News, Spotlight, which (according to a very brief explanation by Google) is :

“(…) section of Google News [that] is updated periodically with news and in-depth pieces of lasting value. These stories, which are automatically selected by our computer algorithms, include investigative journalism, opinion pieces, special-interest articles, and other stories of enduring appeal.”

By looking at both the search engine’s own explanation of Google Spotlight and the selection of stories it has flagged up so far, Nieman Journalism Lab’s Zachary M. Seward suggests, “Spotlight shines on longer features that have bounced around blogs for a few days.”

According to Seward, lifestyle and opinion pieces fare well, while the New York Times is a frequent source. He does see potential for the new section, however, as a way of using people’s online activity to highlight interesting and important material.

[Laura Oliver adds: The usefulness of Spotlight will perhaps be greater for those who use Google News as their first port of call for the day’s headlines – but what portion of Google News’ users behave in this way (figures welcome) needs to be taken into account.]

Journalism Daily: Guardian Q&A, Wired Journalists’ new look, Google News re-indexing

A daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site. Additionally, you can sign up to our e-newsletter and subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

News and features:

Ed’s picks:

Tip of the Day:

#FollowJourn:

On the Editors’ Blog:

Search Engine Roundtable: Google News now re-indexing with latest version

It’s noted on the Search Engine Roundtable blog that Google News is now re-indexing and crawling news sources for the latest version, provided updates are posted within a ‘short period of time’.

In the past, once a story was published and Google News indexed it, Google News would keep the item as it was, even if changes were then made by the publisher.

Full post at this link…

Users in the Google News Help forum discuss the issue here. Google employee Inbal Drukker said:

“We now do have the ability to re-crawl your articles to make sure we have the latest version displayed on our site if these updates are published within a short period of time.”

Nestoria signs up NWN Media for property search

NWN Media, which publishes titles including the Evening Leader and the Chester Standard, has become the latest regional media group to partner with property search engine Nestoria for its property listings.

Nestoria in action on an NWN site

Prior to signing up the Johnston Press division, the start-up has made deals with fellow regional newspaper group Archant and the Independent.

It’s also partnered with listings sites Zoopla and PropertyNews.com.

OUT-LAW.com: Google not liable for defamation in snippets, rules Eady

Google is not liable as a publisher even if ‘snippets’ (the summaries contained in its search results) contain libellous words, a high court ruled last week.

The search engine’s UK and US divisions were sued in England by a training business over comments about its distance learning courses made on a US web forum – an excerpt of which then appeared in search results for the firm.

“Google said that Google Inc. should be sued in California, not England. But even if England is the proper forum, it argued, Google has no responsibility for the words complained of, and therefore there is ‘no reasonable prospect of success’ which is a requirement of rules on serving lawsuits outside the court’s jurisdiction,” reports OUT-LAW.com.

In his ruling, Mr Justice Eady made some additional, significant comments (close to this writer’s heart):

“There appears to be no previous English authority dealing with this modern phenomenon (…) Indeed, it is surprising how little authority there is within this jurisdiction applying the common law of publication or its modern statutory refinements to Internet communications.”

Full story at this link…

OJR: Search engine optimisation tips for online news start-ups

Round-up of Danny Sullivan’s, editor of Search Engine Land, tips for new online news organisations on SEO. Including: creating standing pages for popular ongoing stories and issues; and discovering relevant search terms and keywords linking to your site.

Full list at this link…

Guardian: Twitter overtaking Google for real-time info, says Page

“I think we have done a relatively poor job of creating things that work on a per-second basis,” said Google co-founder Larry Page in his closing speech at the search engine’s Zeitgeist conference.

Google has fallen behind Twitter in this respect, said Page, who also highlighted the potential for up-to-the-minute publication of info to compromise accuracy.

Full story at this link…