The Google Reader team hired us to create this one minute introduction to Google Reader.

As last time, the percentages refer to all ad revenues including digital (or in the case of Newsquest, to classified revenues only, where mentioned). The months mentioned are those in which the declines actually occurred (rather than when they were reported to the market by the companies in question). All % comparisons are year-on-yea

The Press Association’s events listings database is to be made available for non-commercial use by web developers and will be released through the BBC’s web developer network.

# Observation: Do nothing or Listen
# Interaction: Reflect or Converse
# Initiation: Experiment or Embed

Digital cameras and digital media can make your life better and easier – but not at first. Initially they introduce a problem you didn’t previously have. So our job as web geeks is to create that problem and then solve it, so that any difficulties are quickly outweighed by the benefits.

A fantastic use of multimedia on a story about knife crime.

Something happens locally, like, say, a fire; there’s a lot of smoke in the distance, and I want to know what’s going on. But I visit my local newspaper’s website, and there’s nothing. Ditto for other local news outlets’ websites. Eventually (but not always), a reporter will get around to writing up something and it’ll be posted online.

A new project announced by internet giant Yahoo is promising to bring the wonders of the web to television, allowing viewers to customise their TV screens with a swathe of internet services including eBay listings, weather, financial news and Twitter updates.

I have been reading Li and Bernhoff’s Groundswell just recently, and I came across an interesting division of levels of interaction with the social web. I’ll type it out here for your edification.

After years of waning interest amid the social networking revolution, content appears to be king again–or at least getting new respect. Driven by advertising demands, large media companies are scrambling to pump up the volume of professionally produced offerings

These are the first maps and infographics from the air accident today in Barajas Madrid.

There's never been a really easy way to embed a nice slide show of your photos off site, until now.
The new Flickr slide show (example below) is available for the photos on any page you're looking at, meaning you should be able to display your friends' photos, photos with a particular tag etc.

The Washington Post sets a friendlier tone as it invites readers to submit videos, photos, articles and comments. "In order to keep these interactive forums enjoyable and interesting for all of our users, we ask that you follow the rules outlined below." Though many of the rules are identical to those listed by the Los Angeles Times (and other papers reviewed), they were not followed by threat of prosecution.

The goal of sharing data in smaller, better-defined chunks is to make Drupal a key part of the growing eco­system of websites that share structured data.

The big change in the business over the last ten years is precisely the reduction of time available for almost all reporters to do their work.

When the cost of publishing has fallen to zero, who in their right mind could disagree with the chief executive of Fairfax, David Kirk, when he says that “media companies fit for the modern media world need to be lean and agile”?

With my training hat on, I’ve recently been planning some sessions. Looking back over them I thought these notes might prove useful to a wider audience – perhaps for those attempting to arrange such things themselves.

A startup in Arlington, Virginia called FortiusOne (based on technology out of George Mason University) is developing a service called Maker! that will let anyone easily find geo-tagged data available on the Web and map it. One piece of the service is already available: a search engine for geo-data called Finder! It lets you find sets of geographical data already on the Web, store it, and organize it, or upload your own.

"If old school copywriters were thrust into the modern era here is probably how famous headlines may have turned out"

It is our duty to inform you that in line with members in Coventry, Solihull and Midland Weekly Media North, members of the Birmingham Post and Mail chapel have voted to ballot for industrial action.

Media companies' struggles with the impact of the internet are being exacerbated by the downturn. "There are three factors all happening at once: the structural, the cyclical, and the structural multiplied by the cyclical," Mr Liechti said. "All of which makes for a pretty miserable outlook in the near term."

"This is not the long list with all the available wordpress themes on the internet but its an exclusive collection of free wordpress themes which are not less than premium themes."

Tucked away at the base of Johnston’s press release is the real stinker: “advertising revenues for the first 7 weeks of the second half are down by 21% year-on-year”.

The major problem for newspapers is that the additional digital pennies earned from their news web sites come nowhere close to replacing the analog dollars lost by their print products. So maybe a solution is to run additional web sites that have nothing to do with news but that can attract the real masses and hopefully new advertisers – such as social networking sites for the local community?

They are concerned about plans for five compulsory redundancies at the Sheffield Star and related titles and the closure of the Barnsley and Rotherham offices.