At today’s FIPP World Magazine Congress Google’s UK MD Matt Brittin told publishers to use real-time data to monitor consumer trends and looking to the world of e-commerce for examples.
Listen to the full audio of Brittin’s address below:
[audio:http://www.journalism.co.uk/sounds/brittin.mp3]paidContent:UK reports: “Just as newspapers were looking to attract new mobile readers, Apple has rejected the first version of Newspaper(s), an iPhone app that let users read the content of over 50 newspapers around the world, including the New York Times, France’s Le Monde, and the UK’s tabloid the Sun. Apple rejected the app on the grounds that The Sun, with its topless Page 3 Girls, was ‘obscene’.
Yesterday at the FIPP World Magazine Conference, William Kerr, board chairman at Meredith Group suggested that ‘being 12 per cent down is the new up’.
The wider economic downturn and the gap between online and traditional offline advertising revenues in the magazine industry have been referred to in every panel I’ve attended so far (though more often than not it’s referred to as ‘challenging times’). But has the mag industry faced facts?
Dylan Jones, editor of GQ, doesn’t seem to think so:
“When we come out of this recession many industries will be the same, but the mass market motor industry and the newspaper industry will be changed forever,” Jones told delegates.
“There are many people in the magazine industry who think it won’t effect them, but we could equally be having these conversations in two or three years time about the magazine industry.”
There will be more cost-cutting, in particular staff reductions, as the industry realises the impact, he added. (GQ’s publisher Conde Nast reportedly axed five per cent of its US magazine staff last October)
For other’s the downturn is a huge opportunity for innovation and restructuring. Google’s UK MD, Matt Brittin, predicted that the current climate would accelerate certain types of user behaviour online. For example, the use of search and free technologies to create their own content.
The challenge for publishers is to monitor these changes and respond to the consumers’ changing needs online – often by embracing new, free technologies themselves, but also by finding new ways to serve up their content that will be found through specific search queries, for instance, or relating to niche topics.
According to Brittin, opportunities exist – with Google’s help of course – within the ‘first downturn in a truly digital age’.
Global Radio has asked nine web editors to reapply for two jobs, as part of a series of cuts (an unspecified number as yet) across the group.
In January around 40 of its online and interactive staff were axed.
Index on Censorship awards
This year’s winners of the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards were named in London last week.
The Sunday Leader received the journalism award. Its editor Lasanthe Wickrematunge was murdered earlier this year, shortly after publishing an opinion piece in which he predicted his death.
The award winners were selected in five categories: books, films, journalism, new media and law and campaigning.
Mind Journalist of the Year
The prize, which honours excellence in covering mental health issues, will form part of the charity’s annual Mind week in May.
The winner of journalism award will be named together with winners of the Student Journalist, Book of the Year and Champion of the Year awards on May 14.
The journalism nominees include: Patrick Cockburn from the Independent, Toby Wiseman of Men’s Health and Eleanor Harding from the Wandsworth Guardian.
Paul Foot Award re-opens
And last but not least, this year’s Paul Foot Award is open for entries for its fifth year.
Sponsored by Private Eye and The Guardian, the prize rewards investigative or campaigning journalism in the UK.
Entries to the award written by individuals or teams of journalists must be submitted by September 1. To be eligible, material must have been published either in a newspaper, magazine or online between September 1 2008 and August 31 2009.
The prize money this year is going up to £10,000 (from £5,000) for the winner, with £1,000 each for the runners-up.
“The fast-shrinking newspaper business set a new standard for job insecurity in the last couple of weeks. Winning your profession’s highest honor does not mean you get to keep your job, and neither does taking a bullet while at work,” writes Richard Perez-Pena.
While Perez-Pena focuses on the US industry – citing the example of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Giblin who had been made redundant in January – the same story is seen in the UK: Northcliffe Media made the Newspaper Society’s digital team of the year redundant earlier this year.
The UK’s Press Association (PA) has announced a new service – a video wire of raw news footage.
While the association has produced video since 2005, it has never made this content available on a news wire, alongside text and pictures.
Subscribers to the service will be able to edit their own packages from the clips, a release from the agency said – making the cost of the service lower.
Regional newspapers will be offered a free trial of the service, which will feature up to 30 stories a day.
“The video wire is not only a cost-effective solution for news broadcasters, but will also support regional media players at an important stage in their development as multi-platform businesses,” said Tony Watson, PA managing director, in the release.
“As DCMS and Ofcom grapple with the issue of safeguarding plurality of provision in PSB regional television news, we believe the new UK video service could make a significant contribution to the solutions currently under consideration.”
The PA’s launch comes as potential partnerships between the BBC and local media on training and equipment are set to get the go ahead – according to this MediaGuardian report.
Attracting international, ex-pat attention and fans reliving the moment online, sport has shown its ability to drive web traffic to news sites once again with a surge in the Express & Star’s web visitors following the promotion of local football club Wolverhampton Wanderers to the UK’s Premiership.
The site achieved a record 600,000 page views yesterday, with around 330,000 views on the Wolves picture galleries.
“The website chronicles a great day for Wolves fans and we are amazed by the huge interest in it,” said internet editor, Tim Walters, in a statement on the site.
“The traffic on the website was enormous yesterday and today the levels of interest are being maintained.
“The mood of Wolverhampton is dictated by the success or failure of Wolves.
“There is a real feel-good feeling in the city at the moment and people really can’t get enough.”
In addition to coverage in text and picture galleries, an interactive, multimedia timeline was created using Dipity to document the team’s promotion.
Today’s budget announcement is being billed as the most significant of recent times given the UK’s current financial woes.
This is both a breaking news story, but one that requires closer analysis and follow up – and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to make it relevant to the reader.
So how are news organisations covering it online and who’s ticking these boxes?
Telegraph.co.uk
Currently performing well in Google News search for budget, the Telegraph is going in big on online coverage today.
It will be updating throughout the day via its @Telefinance Twitter account (headed up by @hrwaldram). Meanwhile a trio of Telegraph reporters have been liveblogging budget news since 6:30am.
On the subject of Twitter – the Telegraph has reinstated its Twitterfall – an embed aggregating all Twitter updates marked #budget. The feature had to be taken down earlier in the week, because of some mischief, but so far so good with the tweaked (filtered?) version.
In addition there’s a nice ‘What to expect’ guide breaking down the issues that are likely to feature in the budget announcement.
FT.com
Arguably the go-to site for budget coverage given its specialism, the FT is building on tried and trusted features from last year (a budget day podcast, video analysis, a budget calculator) with a new liveblog from 12pm covering Alistair Darling’s speech, editor Robert Shrimsley, who will participate, told Journalism.co.uk.
The format is based on the site’s MarketsLive feature successfully developed and used by its Alphaville blog. As such it will ‘bring people people up to speed, but inform them in an entertaining way’. Financial analysis but entertaining – two styles that rarely meet, said Shrimsley, but that will be key to FT.com’s liveblogging of the budget.
“There’s a premium on getting that information out and telling people what its means. We feel at the FT that we have the right people to pass on that analysis,” explained Shrimsley.
There will be a Twitter feed too, but it’s crucial not spam people with updates, he added. Readers are encouraged to participate in both this stream and the liveblog though.
Alphaville isn’t being used as a lab for experimenting with new ways of coverage, he stressed, but there is potential for more liveblogging across the site. It’s important not to overdose on technology, however, but to use only when applicable, he added.
“Can we offer our audience what is worth reading? There’s lots of innovation on the internet and there’s lots that you can do – that doesn’t mean you have to,” he said.
Channel 4 News website
More use of Twitter by the Channel 4 news team – as introduced by presenter Krishnan Guru-Murphy in the vid below:
There will also be use of CoverItLive (CiL) for a liveblog starting at 12pm, which was similarly used in the site’s coverage of the G20 summit.
Some nice additional touches include the use of FactCheck to test the claims made by the chancellor in the budget; and a wordcloud (or Snowcloud) of Darling’s announcement.
Sky News Online and Times Online
A specially built budget page has been set up including a liveblog, live video streams of the budget speech, and analysis from bloggers, tax experts and taxpayers, the site told us. There’s a good guide to how to use Sky’s online coverage too – one particular highlight, the chance for users to get answers from PKF UK tax accountant Matt Coward.
Meanwhile Times Online will be following up its excellent liveblogging of the G20 summit with a version starting at midday today.
Liveblogging at regional level
Deciphering what the budget means for the average news reader is being tackled head on by the Newcastle Evening Chronicle with a liveblog taking place across a number of Trinity Mirror centres.
“We’ll be mainly trying to digest it for *normal* people with rx [reactions] from experts, rather than the scary £180bn debt figures,” said Colin George, multimedia editor, in a Twitter update.
Wales Online (bringing in a tax expert) and the Birmingham Post – under its dedicated Live! Section – also host budget day liveblogs (using CiL again).
This story appears to be only reported at MailOnline, (let us know if you spot it elsewhere), with 27 comments appearing under the story, to date.
Will Stewart reports that “a Russian journalist believes the level of surveillance is worse in ‘Big Brother Britain’ than it was in Russia during the Soviet era.”
“Irada Zeinalova, who is based in London, said she felt she was being constantly spied on by security cameras.
“She highlighted how in the UK the level of monitoring is such that even rubbish bins have computer chips fitted so councils can check what householders are throwing out.
“‘Security has got absurd,’ she said. ‘I don’t like that level of intrusion into my private life’.”