Friday round up

A selection of digital stories to see you through the weekend.

Tweetminster launches Media Watch channel

The people behind MP tweet-monitoring service Tweetminster have launched a new aggregation service for tracking UK News media, reports Journalism.co.uk.

The Media Watch channel is the latest in a number of launches for the site which also includes health, economy and environment channels.

The homepage of the channel has a "livestream" that includes all Twitter accounts of mainstream media sources and updates as they update.

Alberto Nardelli, Tweetminster founder, told Journalism.co.uk: "The idea behind channels is to make it easier for people to follow news, see what's trending in each topic or within each source, and also make it easier for people to connect with those driving the conversations.

"The longer term goal is an interactive wire - we'll be developing further channels around issues, networks, events and locations and also soon releasing APIs and feeds."

Five free SEO Tools for journalists

Many journalists see Search Engine Optimisation as "the equivalent of writing headlines for robots", writes Alfred Hermida.


But, he points out, it is key to helping readers find what they are looking for. He then provides five free SEO tools that can help journalists make their work easier to find on the web.


These include WordTracker FreeKeywords which provides alternative keyword suggestions with a weighting to indicate their use, and Google Trends which analyses Google searches and works out how many searches have been done for the terms you enter.





Survey reveals digital journalism is tough going but has lots of opportunity

Finally, The Guardian's PDA Blog has a summary of the annual Oriella digital journalism survey.

From the 770 journalists surveyed (from 15 countries around the globe including the UK), around 46% of journalists said they were expected to produce more work, 30% said they are working longer hours and 28% have less time to research stories.

But some 40% said they believed the web provided new opportunities with many looking at Smartphone applications and paywalls as possible streams of revenue. Twitter is also important with 41% running a Twitter feed.

Should Twitter be taught in J-School?

Alfred Hermida highlights an interesting question in his Reportr blog - should journalism students learn to use Twitter as part of their studies?

It's a question he says is under discussion at the World Journalism Education Congress being held in South Africa. Julie Posetti from the University of Canberra is one of the academics arguing for its inclusion. He shared this YouTube clip:



It's an interesting question to consider - it has clear benefits such as learning to drive traffic to your articles, or how to expose stories of interest (such as the Trafigura scandal) and identify story tip-offs, along with the potential dangers of doing so - surely then it's important to grasp the role of Twitter within your journalism career as soon as possible?

But the question arises that can this skill be taught? Or is it something you learn through trial and error?

To follow this and other discussions from the conference, you can follow its Twitter hashtag #WJEC2 or watch live feeds on the on the conference’s site.

What kind of Online Editor are you?

Whilst many newsrooms continue to experiment with their content to increase and retain readership, Folio Magazine has a story about one company that have developed a simple strategy to maximize their online efficiency.

They profile B2B publisher Questex Media, who have defined the key areas that editors are good at, and get their team to try and learn from each others’ successes.

Says Manager of Search Alison McPartland (pictured): "We want to show the particular strength or weakness in each editor.

"There are different ways to focus on how they're preparing content online and we want to highlight those differences. If someone is our top Optimization Editor, what is he or she doing that you could be doing?"

The team has developed four benchmark classifications for online editors which, in a nutshell, are as follows:

Acquisition Expert: Being particularly strong at drawing in an audience to their stories.

Optimization Editor: Driving the most traffic via organic search, using Search Engine Optimization.

Retention Writer: Having a high quality level of interaction with their reader, getting them to come back to their stories.

Engagement Enhancer: Innovating in the way readers interact with a story, providing RSS Feeds, blogs, comments and the like.

The article highlights how this feedback can prompt editors to raise their game, as well as engage in a little friendly competition.

One publication to benefit from this, Questex Media’s HotelWorld Network, is clear that it doesn’t use the data to set job titles but to identify what the readers engage with and why.

"By creating these different ‘categories' of editor, it's easier for us to see why a particular story or author performs well month over month," says Editor-in-Chief Stephanie Ricca.

"We don't use these categories as specific descriptors—meaning, we don't say things like, ‘Stephanie is the Acquisition Expert because she does X and Y and Chris is the Optimization Editor because he does B and C;' instead we use Alison's reports to get better at all aspects of what gets a reader to our site and keeps them there."

(Via Martin Stabe)

Your Chance to Go Hyperlocal at App-building Conference

Whilst the key issue for online journalism is figuring out how to make it pay, one of the other big ideas last year was hyperlocal journalism.

Many have experimented with the practice, having community bloggers and microsites for example on their news site, or self-publishing. In which case, they will be very interested in the conference on how to build useful apps and codes to assist news gathering being held in Birmingham later this month, as flagged up by journalism blog Journal Local.

The "Hacks and Hackers" event, at Birmingham Science Park in Aston (pictured) on Friday 23rd July intended to bring journalists and freelance publishers (such as hyperlocal site owners) together with developers to share knowledge on news gathering and coding for new gathering.

Publishers and hackers will be put into groups to share ideas about what data they would like to learn more from and together create projects which use the data in interesting ways. Prizes will be given for the best projects.

The event is free but places are expected to fill quickly, so Journal Local recommends booking asap. Registration is available through the Eventbrite page.

How the New York Times football tracker could help journalists with effective targeting

It may all seem like a bit of pointless fun, but the New York Times' football tracker could indicate a way to tailor your content based on what your readers are most interested in.

In something similar to Twitter trending topics, the simple, interactive tool tracks the amount of discussion each team player attracts on Facebook and then creates a graphic based on the resulting numbers. The larger their picture, the more talk there is about them.

For example, Robert Green's infamous football fumbling resulted in him being the player most discussed on June 14th. Likewise, an uninspired performance from England against Algeria on the 18th gave Wayne Rooney the top spot.

Interestingly, perhaps suggesting that the discussions aren't entirely focused on the players' performance on the pitch, Christiano Ronaldo has dominated the tracker. As Portugal were eliminated from the tournament at the end of June, perhaps his continued presence is due to his reported Facebook announcement regarding his new role as a dad.

It's great for both the most obsessive of footy fans who dont want to miss a trick and those who have little interest in football but may want to keep up with the watercooler chats.

Arguably, it's also a good way of sport writers and editors keeping track of who and what is catching the attention of their readers which could allow them to tweak their content accordingly. It certainly gives pause for thought.

The Times puts up its paywall

After a lot of speculation, News International is finally putting up its paywalls on The Times and the Sunday Times, reports blogger Jon Slattery.

From today (July 2) access to the sites will cost £1 per day, or £2 per week – although in an introductory offer, all customers will be allowed 30 days access for just £1. There is a seperate charge for the iPad edition.

CEO Rebekah Brooks said in an email to staff: “We have been very pleased with the response from readers since the sites were launched in May. They both showcase our award-winning journalism in a very visual way, giving readers exclusive content and interactivity so that they can get even more from the news. We believe that they offer real value and we look forward to continuing to innovate for our readers."

But with the survey results highlighted yesterday, it remains to be seen whether the paywalls will pay off.

We prefer print...and we don't like to pay for news

'Tis the season for surveys and anyone who fancies themself a futurologist may wish to take a gander at two results highlighted by The Guardian's digital blog and see if they saw these ones coming.

Both make for depressing reading for those at the vanguard of online journalism (Rupert Murdoch may especially want to look away now).

According to the first survey, conducted by Ipsos, 63% of 501 online adults said they would prefer to access the printed copy of their chosen newspaper – while only 11% would choose to access it digitally.

Of this 11%, most said they would prefer to pay a one-time charge for a mobile app, while 3% of those surveyed said they would opt for a monthly online subscription. Daily subscription charges, or per-article fees were not popular.

Unsurprisingly, reports The Guardian, just over half (51%) of the 15- to 50-year-olds surveyed in May said the biggest barrier to accessing paid-for news online is a reluctance to pay – 31% said they would not pay while it is available elsewhere online for free.

Similarly, the story flags a YouGov survey of 2,160 UK adults, also released today, which found that 60% of adults think it is worth paying for a "good newspaper" with a whopping 83% saying they would refuse to pay for online content.

It doesn't bode well for those umming and ahhing over paywalls. The question is, will the small fraction who will pay for news content be enough to turn the fortunes of struggling media outlets?