I have just come across this presentation made by Sacha Chua for IBM called “Gen Y Guide to Web 2.0 at Work”:
It was linked to from a Read Write Web article called “Why Gen Y is Going to Change the World” which is also worth looking at.
There are many people that feel uncomfortable operating in the public sphere of the web, yet it can reap such fantastic benefits.
This evening I had that very rare and precious of things: time on my hands. But, unfortunately, it appears that when given space to think I don’t always use it that wisely.
As I was pounding on the cross-trainer in the gym my mind definitely wandered.
Ignoring some of the more fundemental historical reasons for their being, it occurred to me that many newspaper names in this country might be accused of reinforcing the “we shout, you listen” mentality.
The Post, although I hope developing a reputation to the contrary, is a case in point.
Then there’s The Mail, The Mercury (the winged messenger of the Gods no less!), The Standard, The Telegraph… even The Guardian seems a little paternalistic.
So, I mused, in this brave new world of crowd-sourcing, participation and reader inclusion what should a news publicaton be called?
The Consult? The Listener?
The we-try-and-take-your-opinions-into-account-but sometimes-we-run-out-of-time-er?
I plumped for “The Collaborator”.
It did, however, occur to me that this didn’t sound very Web 2.0 in comparison to the many new social media applications springing up across the interwebs.
Perhaps it would be better to design a cute little mascot-cum-logo and give the publication a title such as “Storeez” or “Gnewz” (oddly gnewz.com goes to the campaign website of Douglas Geiss, Democratic candidate for State Representative Committee in Michigan).
I’m writing an essay at the moment for my Editorial Leaders course I’m doing at UCLAN.
I’m trying to figure out how people get news from websites, what tools they want and what might make them stick around for longer.
Over the past few days I’ve been putting together a spreadsheet looking at the interactive features used by business news websites in the UK.
The study is based on the 2006 study of American newspapers by the Bivings Report. Most of the categories I have kept the same, although I’m adding some that were included in the South African version of the study (undertaken by my tutor at UCLAN, Francois Nel).
I have also added three more categories: the first is the use of interactive tools such as maps to illustrate a story. The seond is that the site provides a clear list of names and contact details of the editorial team to allow for transparency and accountability. The third is a check to see if any are on Twitter – I know it’s not yet a mass communication device but I think it’s a good indicator of those who are thinking about the development of the market.
The first [second] draft graphs I have drawn up are is below – I’m hoping I haven’t missed out too many things (click on the graphs to see them full size):
Use of interactive features by UK national and regional business news websites:
:
So, what do you think? There’s an indication that regional news is a little behind the nationals when it comes to interactive features – but some regionals, such as The Post and LDP Business are catching up.
I think there are a few limitations with the categories that are provided and naming individual elements of interactivity does not necessarily give you a strong insight into the experience of the user (e.g. there’s no point having video if no one can figure out how to get to it).
So, how is your experience of a news site improved, or indeed made worse, by interactive tools?
Also, there are a lot of new tools that have now emerged since this study was first done in 2006. As news websites are still not adopting all the features listed in the Bivings Report, it is still valid, but I’m interested to know if there are tools that you think this study is missing. One I’m quite impressed with is the article history feature The Guardian now uses on the bottom of its stories.
Also, are there any similar studies out there?
At the end of it I have to make some sort of conclusion about what works, what doesn’t and what tools newspaper sites might use in the future.
[Edit: Further to comments on Paul Bradshaw’s blog, similar studies were conducted in 2006 in Italy, New Zealand, South Africa and in the UK.]
I remember being shown this video by Pete Ashton, about the same time as I first dipped my toe into the blogging pool. I watched it again today in amazement at how much more I understood about social media and how much I still had to learn.
If you haven’t seen it (and I know it has done the rounds on the web for over a year) it is an introduction to the social Internet by Michael Wesch, assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University.
I’ve realised I need to keep re-visiting it as I make my mistakes and learn my own lessons about the web. So, I thought I’d post it here:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g]
As the flow of comments has started to slow on the Flickr post, I thought I’d let you all know what I plan to do next!
Over the next few weeks (after I’ve finished my first assignment), I’ll start collating the comments. I think what has come out from the discussion is going to be applicable to a lot of the other things I wanted to looking at for the website project.
I had just assumed (naively, perhaps) that because people were happy for bloggers to link to their work (as long as they were credited), they would also be happy for a site like The Birmingham Post to link to it too.
This, however, doesn’t seem to be completely the case. Most of the concern seems to come from the belief that – as we are a commercial publishing operation – any and all the material we link to on the web must be paid for.
I can understand that point, but I think the distinction between commercial and non-commercial spaces on the Internet needs to be looked at in more detail. Not that I’m going to do that right here and now – the comments have given me way too much to mull over!
In my head, I saw The Birmingham Post website as a place to go for news and opinion, but also as a (sorry to use this word) gateway to Brum’s professional and creative communities on the web. I still see it that way, but I now realise I need to look at how I’m going to do that in more depth.
But please keep the comments coming in, I really want to get to grips with this.
It may be noticeable that, since I commented on Greenslade’s departure from the NUJ last month, this blog has lurched into a discussion on the future journalism and online content.
To my surprise, there has also been an exchange of comments between myself and NUJ multimedia commission member Donnacha DeLong – the chap who sparked off the debate in the first place by writing an article entitled Web 2.0 is Rubbish.
I’m dead chuffed he has taken the time and effort to post – so I thought I’d link to the conversation here.
…and for any journlist who wants to get to grips with the future of journalism.
I’ve been following Paul Bradshaw‘s recent posts about blogging and investigative journalism with great interest. Currently there are five – all draft sections of a chapter for a new Investigative Journalism book.
I think they give a fascinating picture of just what can be achieved online – not just for investigative journalism, but perhaps other forms of reporting too:
In his fifth draft, Paul also puts forward examples of interesting economic models for this style of journalism.
If would be nice to see the NUJ debating how such issues could be better exploited by professional journalists and, perhaps, provide us with a bit of training to boot.
Here’s hoping.
Another blog post from Greenslade on the NUJ’s attitude towards Web 2.0. Again, I find myself agreeing with him.
He describes the frustrations of X, a journalist on a regional weekly.
I predict that X will, in the near future, find that he cannot square the circle at his paper. Despite his continuing sympathies for colleagues, and his lingering desire to remain faithful to the NUJ, he will realise that the demands of a paper gradually moving from print to screen are inimical to those of a union that, despite its pro-digital rhetoric, is committed only to preserving outdated demarcation lines, defying the need for flexibility and struggling to fend off staff cuts that, in fairness, will be necessary.
Also Suw and Kevin from Strange Attractor provide a fantastic response to some of the anti-Web 2.0 polemic that seems to be appearing out of the NUJ. Their post critiques one of the stories that sparked Greenslade’s decision to leave the union – an article by Donnacha DeLong entitled Web 2.0 Is Rubbish . It originally appeared in the NUJ’s magazine The Journalist. Suw and Kevin conclude:
Both of us embraced the internet because of the opportunities it presents. It’s the world’s greatest story-telling medium, bringing together the strengths of text, audio, video and interaction. The internet as a communications tool can help journalists tap sources like never before, making their stories richer and more balanced. Why wouldn’t journalists take advantage of the internet?
Yes, the job is changing, and we as journalists need to change with it. The internet may be posing a threat to the business model that support journalism, and it’s understandable that this causes anxiety. But misrepresenting the reality of that change won’t make it go away.
I couldn’t agree more.
Well! I didn’t get an interview with Her Slyness after all.
But we were introduced and I did have a short chat with her (without my notebook).
We chatted about Web 2.0 and my recent rant about Roy Greenslade’s departure from the NUJ.
She said that she realised that there was a desperate need to invest in new technology because without it (nodding her head towards my iMac running OS 9) young journalists will just leave the business and find somewhere else to work.
She was keen to stress she was excited by the explosion of the web but was, of course, keen to find a way to generate the same revenues online as generated from print.
Then she said her plan was that the Post & Mail was going to have a new IT system and websites that would “blow the competition out of the water” and we would soon be far ahead of what any other newspaper group was doing.
I asked her if she thought Trinity Mirror would be able to create sites to rival The Guardian. She said yes, and The Telegraph too.
She said she had been doing a lot of research on what made a good news website. She said she recognised the good stuff that had been done by competitors but that there had been “dead ends” that they had gone up too, that she would like to avoid.
But, she said, the good thing about the web was that there was an opportunity to experiment with new ideas in a way that wouldn’t financially impact in the same way as doing it in print.
Her parting words were that she would “watch my career with interest”, which was unnerving.
As one colleague suggested, perhaps in the current climate the best I can do is to return the favour.
I’m still ferverish and grumpy so if this turns into a rant you’ll know why!
The Guardian columnist and former Daily Mirror editor Roy Greenslade is leaving the National Union of Journalists because he disagrees with its stance on Web 2.0*.
His reasons for doing so, outlined in his blog, are interesting and I have to say that, on the whole, I agree with him.
Greenslade basically takes the NUJ to task for trying to protect traditional newspaper jobs in a world that is rapidly moving online.
I cannot, in conscience, go on supporting this crucial plank of NUJ policy when it is so obvious that online media outlets will require fewer staff. We are surely moving towards a situation in which relatively small “core” staffs will process material from freelances and/or citizen journalists, bloggers, whatever (and there are many who think this business of “processing” will itself gradually disappear too in an era of what we might call an unmediated media).
But that’s only part of the problem. It is also clear that media outlets will never generate the kind of income enjoyed by printed newspapers: circulation revenue will vanish and advertising revenue will be much smaller than today. There just won’t be the money to afford a large staff.
The NUJ argues that it sees Web 2.0 as an opportunity, but that it does not want large corporate media groups to use this as a cost-saving opportunity to cut jobs, thereby lowering journalistic standards.
But frankly most large corporations in any industry will seize upon an opportunity to save money.
If you’re a chief executive it’s all about the shareholder value: look at Heinz, Peugeot and Lil-lets moving out of the West Midlands. Protests by unions made little difference to their decisions to close factories in the region and cut jobs.
Until journalistic standards start to directly effect revenue (which comes mainly from advertising), then what economic reason is there to retain journalists? Especially if you are finding it increasingly hard to attract advertising.
So yes, I imagine Web 2.0 will change the face of journalism within large media organisations. I think small teams aggregating and checking the facts of blog posts and forums may well be something we see in the future.
But does that signal the death of a trade?
I don’t think so. I suspect that journalism will diversify and take on new forms, rather than follow the old structures of the past.
The established brands will remain in this cut down form, but advertising is a devious and capricious bedfellow. Some of it will follow its target audience online to specialist news sites run by smaller, leaner, news teams. Some journalism will probably move into the third-sector and operate not-for-profit.
I think there will be an increase in mercenary journalism, where interested parties pay to have a story written and published. I also imagine we will lose some of our best talent to the comfort and security of PR – but this was already happening prior to Web 2.0.
As for other possible models for journalism of the future, I do not have the foresight nor the intelligence to dream them up. This is where I think the NUJ should really be picking up the mantle.
I have had only one exprience of an NUJ debate on new media, at a breakfast meeting during the annual conference in Birmingham. The general theme was regressive and fearful – a lot of old hacks worried about how it may effect their jobs.
I do sympathise to some extent, but only, I think, as far as any person with no prospect of a final salary pension can. Mostly I found it alienating.
For me Web 2.0 is an exciting prospect for journalists to intermingle with readers in a way never seen before. It’s an opportunity to use our collective knowledge to produce more in-depth and searching articles.
All this blabbing on about current journalism being a skill that must be preserved and pickled in aspic is annoying and a waste of time.
I want to be excited by the future of my industry, not fearful and I want my union to help shape it, not bury its head in the sand and hope it never comes.
*thanks bounder