Online News Design

Going the web app way makes sense when more than 60 per cent of mobile and tablet users get their news using browsers

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 08:45:38 -0400

Going the web app way makes sense when more than 60 per cent of mobile and tablet users get their news using browsers

Changing social media policies

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 05:18:36 -0400

As organizations evolve, their media policy changes too - its fascinating to see how some struggle to strike the right balance between freedom and creativity: The evolution of AP’s social media policy - Muck Rack

An experiment called Evening Edition

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 08:20:50 -0400

Interesting experiment - a different approach to news presentation. Will it work?

It won’t give you everything you need. But it gives you a baseline for staying informed, and let’s face it, that’s about all many people have time for. Evening Edition has removed the stress and work of getting that information.

'Priciples' of editing and designing

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:01:07 -0400

Mario Garica talks about the three basic principles of editing and designing in a post on his blog:

1. It is not about print first or digital first, it is about the story first.

2. We live in a multi platform world and it is the four platforms of what I call the “media quartet” that should guide how we process storytelling: mobile, online, print and tablet.

3. Each platform offers its own characteristics and smart editors and designers will
adapt stories, or aspects of it, to suit each platform and its uniqueness and/or potential.

Looking at a Facebook app that dramtically pushed up traffic to a news site

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 05:31:45 -0400

Latest on Online News Design: A look at a Facebook app that has helped The Guardian channel traffic to its site - how does it work? And does it really make that much of a difference

Versatility of citizen journalists in conflict zones

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 06:55:09 -0400

An interesting article “Activist Media from the Frontlines: Mobile, Strategic, and Much More Than Just “Being in the Right Place at the Right Time” on the Mobile Media Toolkit describes the versatility of citizen journalists in conflict zones: “The media-savvy video journalists, dubbed vee-jays deploy a number of astute dissemination strategies: Photos and videos are shared across multiple platforms alongside additional text context or transcripts, and often have metadata such as time, date, and location stamps.”

Two open source timline tools for newsrooms

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 08:00:05 -0400

Latest on Online News Design: some details about two open source tools specifically oriented towards newsroom use. A new one from Knight Lab and another from ProPublica.

Newsrooms and Pinterest

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:16:16 -0400

The blog 10,000 words has a post on how The Wall Street Journal has set up a Quotes Board on Pinterest. Each image is created using Photoshop. Innovation at work, but how useful has it really been in driving traffic to the site?

'Social media not yet a major driver of news consumption'

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 08:08:36 -0400

Social media is not an ‘overwhelming driver’ of news consumption in the US as yet, states The Pew Research Center’s State of the Media report for 2012.

Over all, just 9% of digital news consumers very often follow news recommendations from Facebook or from Twitter on any of the three digital devices (computers, smartphones or tablets). That compares with more than a third, 36%, who very often go directly to news organizations on one of their devices, 32% who get news from search very often, and 29% who turn to some sort of news organizer site or app.

So what does that mean for news organizations that have been investing heavily in social media-based promotion?

First, the explosion of new mobile platforms and social media channels represents another layer of technology with which news organizations must keep pace.

Many more interesting points in the report, which says that mobile devices are helping to boost news consumption and long-form journalism.

And it might be comforting to know that “the most common way that people get news is by going directly to a news organization’s website or app.”

Ways media could use Facebook interest lists

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 02:58:49 -0400

A few practical tips and ideas in this Poynter post on how journalists and news organisations could use the new Facebook interest lists feature.

Americans seem least inclined to pay for news on tablet

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 03:56:24 -0400

Americans tablet owners don’t seem too keen to pay for news content, says this NielsenWire post, citing a study.

New map tool - useful for newsrooms

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 03:01:42 -0400

MapBox Streets claims that it is “a beautiful alternative to Google Maps powered by high-quality open data from OpenStreetMap”. Worth taking a look. And here’s a post on the Idea Lab blog about it.

A newsroom that experiments with its own timeline tools

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 08:00:05 -0400

Some news organizations are not only building their own timeline tools but also using them effectively. A post from the ProPublica Nerd blog explains in some detail the kind of thinking and experimentation that goes into that kind of an effort. Of course, you have better control over things if you have built your own tool - and ProPublica has one called TimelineSetter. Yes, newsrooms could try it out - it’s open source.

How to (or not to) approach sharing

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 02:41:00 -0400

Everybody knows sharing is important to news sites, but this CJR article has some pointers to how they could be getting their sharing strategies wrong.

In deciding the particulars of how audiences can share journalism, news organizations must achieve balance between content that is easy to share, and that which audiences can repackage if they wish.