What's up?

Newsmapping the globe ...

It looks good, but it's strangely out of date. Proof of concept only, perhaps? Right now Australian stories on the map are three days old, there's a 9-week old story from the Washington Post about a blogger on death row, a similarly aged story about pay rates for workers in Calgary, but nothing from today.

New look for the NYT

The New York Times relaunched its web site this week. Here are a few responses:

- Writing in Slate, Jack Shafer decided he liked the new site so much he was cancelling his print subscription.

- Newly appointed designer Khoi Vinh blogged about the design but was too modest to take more than a passing credit.

- Six Apart analysed the new look and decided it was heavily influenced by blogs.

Stats and alexaholics

Here's a handy free metric tool for comparing site traffic across the top 100,000 sites on the web - http://www.alexaholic.com/

Bridging the web print divide

Although newspapers have been reporting via the Web for more than a decade, the extent to which online newspaper reports have expanded to include more video and audio elements, constant breaking news, and the exploding world of blogs, online columns, and reader feedback is nearly limitless. With podcasts, daily streaming reports, and other visual images, newspapers are combining their newsroom talent with the Web's immediacy and high-tech presentations to revolutionize news coverage well beyond the morning paper.

In the past year, numerous newspapers, including USA Today, the New York Times, The Sacramento Bee, and the Chicago Tribune, have reorganized their approach to create either 24-hour "continuous" news desks or combined Web/print newsrooms in which the online and print staffs are integrated. "The critical thing is that this is a merger, not a hostile takeover," declares USA Today Editor Ken Paulson. In a key move last December, he promoted Kinsey Wilson, who holds the top position at the paper's Web site, to an executive editor post. "It is a combining of talent," Paulson explains. "The hope is that the print edition will help enhance USA Today online, and those online will help bring their talent to the newspaper."

Source: Editor and Publisher

Citizen journalism redux

A nice roundup here of the main points of “citizen journalism” (or community/user generated content, or whatever you prefer to call it).

Includes the effects on traditional journalism, early examples of cit journalism, interview with Dan Gillmour, and a look at the BBC's UGC unit.

Guardian editor on the end of newspapers

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger spoke to the Royal Society of Arts in London a couple of weeks ago on the subject "Newspapers in the age of blogs".

The speech was blogged extensively by Mike Butcher at mbites:

"The Guardian's editor is almost certainly unique amongst British newspaper editors as having regularly supped with start-ups and Web 2.0 companies in Silicon Valley. He is trying to figure out, understandably, how his newspaper should deal with the pincer movement of the terminal decline in newspaper readership and the loss of display and classified advertising revenue - all thanks to the Internet. [...]

The picture certainly looks grim. Revenue is walking out of newspapers, into Internet portals and niches titles.

At the same time, Rusbridger outlined, there is a gap between the time it is taking newspapers to develop their own web sites and the surge in internet revenues among the boisterous technology start-ups and the leviathans of Google, Yahoo! and MSN."

An MP3 of Rusbridger's speech is here.

Heard it on the Newsvine

Newsvine is the latest and greatest in citizen journalism efforts, combining AP feeds with blog posts and "seed" links from users.

OJR gives it a nice rap:

"Newsvine is a Seattle-based company started by former Disney and ESPN staffers. Their site newsvine.com launched an invitation-only preview beta in January. The site publishes news feeds from the Associated Press and ESPN, and then gives users the ability to comment on those stories, publish their own stories, write their own blog, and vote which articles should receive the most attention. (You can find a detailed overview of the site's features on solutionwatch.com.)

By combining hard news with citizen opinion in a single site, Newsvine has built a powerful call-and-response mechanism that couples the culling power of news aggregators with the empowerment of citizen media. Each type of content provides a check against the excesses or omissions of the other. That focus on daily news then provides the clear organization and compelling presentation that can spur readers to involvement."

Podcast mania

So you want to be an internet star. All you need is a script, a PC, and a short list of gear.

The technology allows anyone to produce a radio-style program that an audience can find, download, and listen to anytime. Podcasts aren't just for iPods; they can be heard on any computer or portable audio player.

Internet the future for news

Here's the latest in the ongoing argument about newspapers and the web.

"Simon Waldman, director of digital publishing at Guardian Newspapers, says they 'are getting the whole organisation ready for a digital future'.

"Within 'six to seven years', the group planned to dedicate 80 per cent of its time to digital activities, compared to 20 per cent at present, Waldman said."

Meanwhile, Spain's El Mundo is miles ahead:

"A digital strategy dating back nearly 10 years has made the site 'very profitable' since 2003, with a profit of E1.3 million ($2.08 million) in 2004, according to Elmundo.es director of development Emilio Plana Hidalgo."

Elsewhere, E-media Tidbits reports that future readers are 'content creators'. Steve Yelvington writes:

"Now is the time to focus your Internet content strategy on participation and online community development, and to work to change your newsroom culture to embrace interaction. Question that worn-out term, 'readers.' It doesn't cover the territory any more."

Ten Technorati hacks and one CEO

Steve Rubel has a handy primer on how to get the best out of Technorati.

And BusinessWeek has a podcast interview with David Sifry who talks about his company's struggle to meet soaring demand as he confronts a new blog search rival, Google. But he says that Technorati continues to grow faster than the blog world itself, which is doubling every five months.