Telegraph Media Group has threatened an injunction against a staff ballot proposing industrial action over recent decision to axe casual staff, which will happen from October 13.
A round-up of the Telegraph’s digital plans – past, present and future – complete with interactive timeline.
The full list of nominees for this year’s AOP awards, which span 16 categories (courtesy of the AOP):
Launch 2008
Guardian News and Media – guardian.co.uk/katine
Hearst digital – allaboutyou.com
IPC Media – Goodtoknow
James Publishing Ltd – World Reviewer
Redwood – www.yourfamily.org.uk
Channel 4/Zone – Channel 4 Food
Editorial Team – Business
Building – Building.co.uk
Centaur Media – thelawyer.com
CNET Networks UK – silicon.com
Dow Jones & Company – eFN.com
Incisive Media – Accountancy Age
Incisive Media – Legalweek.com
Reed Business Information – PersonnelToday.com
Reed Business Information – XpertHR.co.uk
Editorial Team – Consumer 2008
BBC Worldwide – bbcgoodfood.com
Financial Times – FT.com
Guardian News and Media – guardian.co.uk/sport
IPC MEDIA – nme.com
IPC Media – Nuts.co.uk
Sky News – Sky News Online
Trinity Mirror – Gazette Communities
Research & Insights Project 2008
Guardian News & Media – GNM Total Audience
IPC Media – IPC Media for The Origin Panel – Women’s Space
ITV Online – Ad Innovations-Itv.com
Orange UK – Exposure – Orange UK
Reed Business Information – Travolution
Trinity Mirror – ARRON 2007/2008 Digital Audience Research
Online Advertising Sales Team – Consumer 2008
Bauer Media – Bauer Media Digital Sales Team
Channel 4 – Channel 4
Financial Times – FT.com
Future Publishing PLC – Future Publishing – Digital Agency Team
Guardian News and Media – guardian.co.uk Ad Sales Team
Haymarket Consumer Media – whatcar.com
ITV Online – www.itv.com
Online Advertising Sales Team – Business 2008
CMPi – Building Magazine Online Commercial Team
Incisive Media – Accountancy Age Integrated Sales Team
Redactive Media Group – People Management online sales
Reed Business Information – RBI Job Sites
Reed Business Information – RBI e-Newsletters
UBM – BD & Building Virtual Careers
Innovation 2008
Financial Times – Mockingbird Model
Guardian News and Media – Guardian Publisher Network
ITV Online – Interactive Vouchering – Coronation Street and Harveys Furniture Store
Lonely Planet Publications – Lonely Planet Audio Phrasebooks for iPhone (and iPod Touch)
Jobsite (Assoc Northcliffe Digital) – BeMyInterviewer.co.uk
Lulu Enterprises UK – Lulu.com
TSL Education – TES Resource Bank
Cross-Media Project 2008
CMPI – www.thepublican.com/proudofpubs
Guardian News and Media – British Gas Greener Living Partnership
Incisive Media – Young Professional from Accountancy Age
IPC Media – The WKD Nuts Football Awards
Reuters Media – Bearing Witness: Five Years of Reporting War in Iraq
Seven Squared – ASOS ON FACEBOOK
TelecomTV – Mobile Planet
Times Online – Times Archive
Commercial Partnership
Bauer Media – Bauer Media Zoo Royal Marines 2008
Bauer Media – FHM / Nivea for Men Really Useful Guide
Channel 4 New Media – Ford Bite
Financial Times – Financial Times SST Commercial Partnership 2008
Incisive Media – Adviser Academy – IFAonline and JPMorgan
Reed Business Information – New Scientist Visions of the Future with UniversalMcCann for Microsoft
Telegraph Media Group – Telegraph Media Group and Cisco
VideoJug – Microsoft Office 2007 “It’s a new day, It’s a new office” VideoJug Series
Use of Video 2008
BBC – BBC News website
Channel 4 – Embarrassing Bodies
Financial Times – FT.com
Guardian News and Media – Zimbabwe election: The stolen ballots
IPC Media – NME.COM Video
News Group Newspapers – Sun TV
TelecomTV – TelecomTV
Telegraph Media Group – Telegraph TV
Mobile Site 2008
Brownbook Limited – Brownbook.net
Channel 4 – Big Art Mob
CondéNet UK – Glamour Mobile
CondéNet UK – GQ Mobile
Lonely Planet Publications – Lonely Planet m-site
News Group Newspapers – Sun Mobile
Online Community 2008
National Magazine Company – www.runnersworld.co.uk
News Group Newspapers – My Sun
Reed Business Information – Farmers Weekly Interactive
The National Magazine Co – www.babyexpert.com
Website 2008 – Business
Dow Jones & Company – eFN.com
Faversham House Group Ltd – www.edie.net
MarketClusters Ltd – StrategyEye
Reed Business Information – Hairdressers Journal Interactive
Reed Business Information – XpertHR.co.uk
Reed Business Information – Bankersalmanac.com
Reed Business Information – Farmers Weekly Interactive
TSL Education – www.tes.co.uk
Website 2008 – Consumer
Associated Newspapers Ltd – Mail Online
BSkyB – Sky News
Guardian News and Media – guardian.co.uk
IPC Media – marieclaire.co.uk
IPC Media – nme.com
National Magazines Company – youandyourwedding.co.uk
News Group Newspapers – Sun Online
VideoJug – www.videojug.com
Online Publisher 2008 – Business
Dow Jones & Company – eFN.com
E-consultancy.com – E-consultancy.com
Reed Business Information – Reed Business Information
RICS – RICS
TSL Education – TSL Education
Wildfire Communications – Wildfire Communications Ltd
Online Publisher 2008 – Consumer
Associated Newspapers Ltd – Associated Northcliffe Digital
BSkyB – BSkyB
Hearst digital – Hearst digital
IPC Media – IPC Media
Microsoft – MSN UK
News Group Newspapers – Sun Online
Telegraph Media Group – Telegraph Media Group
e-Player, a new ‘multi-channel video player delivering sports highlights and video clips’, is to be used by a raft of UK media organisations, Sinead Scanlon writes for Journalism.co.uk.
ITV Sport, Telegraph Media Group, the Daily Mail, News International, Trinity Mirror, Evening Standard, Metro and Bauer are all set to deploy the player, which has been developed by Virgin Media and sports and entertainment company Perform, a press release on the launch said.
The player will be free for the media groups and will provide sports highlights and updates from UK football and European leagues, as well golf, tennis and rugby clips. Advertising revenue will be shared between Virgin and Perform and the media sites, based on the amount of traffic generated to the videos.
“We have secured distribution with many of the highest traffic, most respected online publishers in the UK, making e-Player the most exciting online video advertising proposition in the market,” said Oliver Slipper, joint-CEO of Perform.
Telegraph Media Group has expressed surprise at the NUJ’s announcement of a strike action ballot.
Telegraph Media Group is to create 18 new ‘content editors’ as part of plans that will see 40 casual staff axed from the group.
A series of ‘new world’ jobs will also be introduced including experts in data and mapping.
The Guardian has admitted it mistakenly bought the keywords Madeleine McCann from Google.
By wrongly purchasing the keywords a link to the paper’s coverage of Madeleine’s disappearance appeared in a column of sponsored results when a search for her name was made on Google.
The newspaper has now taken down the link and has reviewed the list of keywords it owns, Marc Sands, marketing director for the Guardian, told Journalism.co.uk.
The paper’s purchase of the words Madeleine McCann was criticised by Justin Williams, assistant editor at Telegraph Media Group, on his personal blog, who said the practice showed the paper was ‘desperate’ to hold onto its position as the UK’s most popular newspaper website according to the most recent Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) traffic figures.
“The purchase of terms is a way of getting your stories, at a cost, in front of people. It’s absolutely what everyone does all the time,” said Sands.
[advert]A search for the terms shows the Mirror currently owns the keywords McCanns cleared, while a Google search for other keywords, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, show the the Sun and Times have also purchased phrases from Google.
“It is a way of getting it [news] distributed to people who have expressed an interest in that subject,” he added.
“The issue with the Madeleine McCann keywords is an interesting one. It’s like advertising, but not really: the only reason you and I search for a term is because we are interested in that term.”
The practice had been criticised in the blog post, he said, because of the Guardian’s previous stance on the coverage of the McCann story.
“The Guardian in the past has been very critical of the coverage of Madeleine McCann, saying it has been salacious and misleading. What the person in the blog post is saying is that Madeleine McCann is not to be treated in this way, so what on earth are they doing buying keywords?”
The issue led the paper to review its list of current keywords to assess ‘what news is okay to do it with and what isn’t’, he said.
The Guardian buys thousands of Google keywords relating to current news stories every week, he added. It currently owns the keywords ‘stamp duty’, ‘university league tables’ and ‘post office closures’.
“Madeleine McCann slipped through the net. You don’t approve all these [keyword purchases] every day. We would have had to say to the company that buys the keywords for us: never buy the keywords for Madeleine McCann,” he said.
Search engine marketing and search engine optimisation of newspaper websites is a ‘new area’ for publishers, added Sands.
“Everyone is working their way through and trying to remain true exactly to the principles of what they’re doing, but also to ensure that they’re getting read.”
While the Daily Mail allegedly has a gentlemen’s agreement with the Telegraph not to write about each other’s parent company, it hardly seems worth pointing out that no such pact exists between the Guardian and the Telegraph online.
Over the last month a series of articles published by Guardian.co.uk has alleged various problems with or criticised Telegraph.co.uk.
The latest links the MyTelegraph section with the BNP for a second time in little over a week, detailing a blog post on the platform by BNP member Richard Barnbrook entitled ‘Blame the immigrants’.
The Guardian first made the connection between the party and MyTelegraph with an article looking into managing online communities that discussed MyT under the provocative headline ‘Platform for free speech … or hate?’ and went on to say one user ‘publishes BNP campaign literature and flyers’ on the site.
On both occasions the Telegraph emphasised the free speech ethos behind MyT, which is policed by readers who are relied upon to report offensive material.
The policy seems to be working – Barnbrook’s post has attracted over 30 comments including several from the hang ‘um and flog ‘um brigade alongside more measured anti-BNP responses.
MyTelegraph’s problems at the end of last year, as the technology firm behind its development went into administration, were also documented recently by the Guardian:
“Telegraph Media Group’s community media site MyTelegraph ‘is on life support’ until it receives an overhaul this summer, the company’s communities editor said today.
“Shane Richmond told the PPA Magazines 2008 conference that the site had suffered periodic downtime, slow page-loads and instability since the company which built it, Interesource, went in to administration late last year.”
I was there, he did say that, but then again he’d already blogged about it months before.
But then again, again. He DID say it, so it’s fair to report him saying it.
In addition to this last month’s ABCe figures showing that the Telegraph site passed the Guardian for the first time to become the UK’s most popular newspaper website in terms of unique users, seem only to have fanned the competitive fire.
The Guardian was the first to delve into the Telegraph’s recent rapid growth in unique users – from 12,283,835 in February to 17,036,081 in March, and 18,646,112 in April – suggesting a switch in internal measurement tools may have prompted the surge.
Continuing the series of pieces on the Telegraph’s online traffic – and there are a few of them now – the Guardian suggests that a review of online traffic measurement announced by JICWEBS last week was sparked by publishers concerns over the Telegraph’s recent growth.
All fair news pieces from the Guardian? Surely there can be no complaint with their reporting factual news? Well, yes there can.
After the publication of the latest Guardian piece today, Telegraph communities editor Shane Richmond came out fighting, accusing the Guardian of hypocrisy and arguing that if the charge leveled at the Telegraph is one of giving a platform to racists and fanatics then it is a charge that could well be applied to the Guardian’s Comment is Free blog.
“How about we take the view that when you have an open platform, whether it’s My Telegraph, Comment Is Free, or the internet itself, then you have to accept that a multiplicity of views will be expressed on it and that some of those views will be unpalatable to some people,” he wrote.
“If the Guardian’s attacks on our site are motivated by genuine concern, then they should look closer to home first. However, I suspect that this sustained criticism has more to do with sour grapes over recent audience trends.”
Stories about other publishers are fair game and healthy competition between the titles is to be encouraged.
But take the BNP stories and the numerous stories about the Telegraph’s web advances en masse and one may begin to wonder when healthy news reporting begins to border on the obsessive?
UPDATE – the ‘debate’ continues with a post from Shane Richmond in response to a comment left by Comment is Free editor Matt Seaton on his Telegraph.co.uk blog
The Telegaph’s NUJ chapel have postponed the threat of staff strike action as they wait for news of their employers plans on flexible working.
According to the Guardian, staff at the paper are again smarting from a round of quick-fire dismissals – a chapel meeting yesterday was reported as being ‘furious’ as staff railed against the treatment of colleagues.
Yet journalists decided not to do anything ahead of an NUJ meeting with Telegraph Media Group reps next week.
Stephen Brooks has been appointed as the UK managing director of web analytics firm Nielsen Online. Brooks takes up his new post after working for EMAP, where he was digital director for magazines.
Before EMAP he was publisher of mad.co.uk for seven years, having helped launch the Centaur title in 1999.
Joining Brooks is David Webb as UK client director media research and Matthew Dodd as vice president of research and analytics for EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).
Webb was formerly director of digital research worldwide for CNN International, while Dodd leaves the Telegraph Media Group, where he was director of customer insight.
Moving roles within the company, Brad Little has also been named director of industry solutions for the UK team.