David Black

“In my Guardian column this week, I argue that we need to explode the home page — and our notions of the page and the site, for that matter. The column is a shorter version of the post below:”

Comscore April 2007 audience rankings

“User-generated advertising content should be amateurish. That’s the whole idea… Now let me put on my news hat: User-generated news content must be edited. “

“US newspaper groups experienced a 22 per cent increase in online advertising revenues but the sharp rise was not enough to offset the decline in revenues from traditional print advertising.”

“the audience never fully funded news anyway. Cover prices simply don’t reflect the cost of production. Yet news remains a great way to bring an audience in. The newspaper business has historically been very profitable working this way.”

“There are at least three good reasons for moderating. First, so that users are not driven away by abusive or offensive postings; second, to make sure that the discussion stays on topic; and third, to avoid legal liability.”

‘Associated’s definition of Modern MidBritain encapsulates 47 per cent of the population, all of them falling within one of five demographic groups listed by the research company Acorn… 61 per cent of Mail readers fall into one of these categories.

“Norway is the European country with the highest proportion of the population on Facebook: over 170,000 Norwegians, or 3% of the population have a Facebook profile.”

“Google is changing its search to integrate video, photos, text, and news with [text] results… This promotes other media to the exalted rank of text. And it tells publishers that they’d damned well better do the same.”

“the revelation for me is that all content goes through some form of editorial process, the difference on the web is that the process plays out in the open.”

‘Steve Souders of Yahoo’s “Exceptional Performance Team” gave an insanely great presentation at Web 2.0 about optimizing website performance by focusing on front end issues.’

“Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. continued upward totaling $16.9 billion in 2006… exceeding 2005 by 35%. Q4 2006 internet advertising revenues totaled $4.8 billion, representing record revenues for a single quarter”

“Consider search optimisation – we’ve had that since some plumber hit on calling his firm “Aardvark Plumbers” to secure first place in his local Yellow Pages and his competitor changed to “A1 Plumbers” the week after. “

“Most news sites put far too much effort into the home page – as few as 20% of daily visitors see it, because they arrive, instead, via search or links”

“E&P spoke to the editors of three top newspaper sites — USAtoday.com, latimes.com, and washingtonpost.com — about how a redesign makes its way from a set of ideas and needs to an executed vision.”

“After eating babies, the WiFi Routers will grow to enormous size and attack our cities.”

Kevin Anderson: “Exclusive content, tailored for the web not for TV, made to share and seed with low-cost but high-quality pro-sumer gear is the beginning of a winning video strategy for newspapers.”

“banner ads may provide a valuable function in fostering familiarity even if those that view them never click through to the source of the ads.”

“web site ratings for a good number of television stations are getting stronger… compared to newspaper web sites.”

“Digital media has unbundled content, disrupting legacy businesses that sell bundled media like albums and newspapers… the problem is not in the aggregation – it’s in the efficiency and flexibility of the aggregation.”

“Will the new stress on discrete digital tracks bring a new flowering of creativity in music? I don’t know. Maybe we’ll get a pile of gems, or maybe we’ll get a pile of crap. Probably we’ll get a mix.”

“The BBC Trust chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, has asked for more time to consider controversial plans to introduce advertising on a global version of the BBC website.”

Vertdict research: “The etailing market for goods grew by 33.4% to £10.9bn last year, and will grow to £28.1bn, or about 8.9% of the UK’s total retail sales, by 2011.”

“2005 there was a twelve percentage point gap between the number of adults with broadband at home in Northern Ireland (lowest at 24%)… and England (highest at 36%)… by 2006 this gap had reduced to three percentage points”

“The figures, from Internet research from Nieslen//Netratings, indicate that young women now account for 18% of the UK Internet population and over one-fifth of all UK computer time.”

Presentation from Metafilter founder Matthew Haughey. [Via Kevin Anderson]

“there is also a crucial viral component – when a friend adds an application, it is noted in their news stream on their profile.”

“users are people, and people vary wildly in their talent… while user-generated content may be ‘free,’ sifting through to find GOOD content is not.”

“The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type or create a particular chosen text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.”

Adrian Holovaty: “I’ll be founding a Web startup, EveryBlock, that focuses on making local news and information useful… The sad part of all this is that I’m leaving my job at washingtonpost.com.”

“Further lowering daily newspapers’ value online, their traditional print package of news ‘unpackages’ online simply because consumers now have online access to every newspaper and news magazine in the world.”

“Since the nation first discovered the joys of internet shopping 12 years ago, Britons have spent more than £100bn shopping online.”

“AOL has made its second major purchase in the last few days, snapping up German ad management firm AdTech AG. Yesterday it was announced that AOL had bought Third Screen Media.”

“The acquisition values 24/7 Real Media at approximately US$649 million, equivalent to approximately 3% of WPP’s market capitalisation on 16 May 2007. “

“The site constantly scrapes news sites and blogs and compiles a continually updated list of links to the most popular tech news of the day. But what makes Techmeme work?”

“If you do not have a breaking news blog ready to go on your website, get started on building one. Today. The blog is the ideal format to deliver information in a breaking news situation.”

“This latest share acquisition, Schibsted said, will take its total holding in Stavanger Aftenblad to 52.9 pct, up from 32.3 pct.”

“When I went to the WSJ.com version of the column, I discovered the full text of what Huang had written. The print edition had only about half of what he wrote. If I hadn’t looked it up online, I would have missed the main point of the short item.”

“We can’t expect consumers to come to us. It’s arrogant for any media company to assume that.”

“In the end, when visiting Newsvine I don’t feel that I’m getting a good editorial view of things (like the New York Times) or a purely social view either (like Digg).”

“Seven tips on how to run a successful community.”

“a month later, as former TechCrunch writer Marshall Kirkpatrick noted in Twitter today, the site appears to be nothing more than a ghost town.”

“You can use Marketplace to list what you have and what you want within your group of friends, networks, or other networks… you can use Marketplace to get a sense of everything available or desired within your networks.”

New CMS. Built by the Lawrence Journal-World using Python and Django. “Ellington is an online publishing system designed from the ground up for news and entertainment sites.”

Like Twittervision, for Flickr. Visualisation of flickr photos plotted onto maps in near-real-time.

“Future Publishing has appointed Richard Foster to the newly created role of digital director. Mr Foster joins from Revenue Science where he was UK managing director.”

“It’s not that journalism is becoming obsolete; rather the delivery methods are changing: ‘Even the kids realize news is important. The problem is paper is too expensive,’ he said.”

P.J. O’Rourke: “The Internet is an advance for voluntary association. It adds freedom to markets, decreases the force of coercion and gives persuasion greater sway over power.”

Article on the growing use of Drupal to power newspaper community sites.

Map of online communities and social sites. “Do not use for navigation.”

“Britain’s regional newspapers have accelerated their digital development rapidly over the past 18 months… With less fanfare, these regionals have also adopted the same web-first approach to publishing as some national newspapers.”

“the My Telegraph feature would initially offer news customisable by keyword or subject and would later be expanded to weather and host of other features.”

“At My Telegraph you can start a blog, join debates and bookmark articles. More features will be coming soon.”

Latest Pew segmentiaton of internet usage: “Elite users (31 percent), Middle of the road users (20 percent), and Those with few “tech assets” and limited use of technology (a whopping 49 percent)”

On latest Pew study: “I was expecting the proportion [of users contributing content to web2.0 sites] to be much smaller — along the lines of the emerging 1-9-90 rule of thumb for social media”

“We’re saying newspapers will go online, and there will be massive innovation that comes out of that,” Gates said. “We’re saying that TV… will completely go online and have the kind of targeting interaction that you only get out on the Web today.”

“Regional newspaper group Archant is overhauling its network of news sites to allow readers to see a front page personalised to a radius around their location.”

“Once you’ve geographically tagged your stories, your ability to do hyperlocal sites is so much easier. I can create a web site for half a village if I want, because if all of the stories are tagged, they are the stories that come top of the list”

April 2007 national newspaper ABCs.

“I think journalism itself is a dated concept. We are now in the world of conversation… Just because it’s said in 140 characters or less doesn’t mean it’s not journalism.”

Suw Charman: “The historic role of gatekeeper, played until now by professional journalists, is obsolete. But new technology and increased civic participation are creating new opportunities for the mainstream media, and three key roles are emerging.”

“John Wilpers, editor in chief of BostonNow, a free weekday daily introduced last month, said he wanted to fill the paper with items that local bloggers submitted to the BostonNow Web site.”

Rupert Murdoch: “The outstanding example is the London Times. In good months it has 10 million unique users and is greatly expanding its franchise. It’s attracting enough advertising to more than pay its costs.”

“For a while, the new front page will be a facade concealing a busy building site, as work proceeds on an 18-month programme to redesign and rebuild every part of GU.”

“A new front page for Guardian Unlimited will allow us to better reflect the rich variety of content already on offer, and help tell stories in new and exciting ways.”

Martin Belam: “I’d like to see one of the papers take the plunge and offer full ad-supported content feeds… There are some areas which remain untapped, like personalised RSS feeds for search results, and putting content tagging on news stories”

“The simple fact is that unbundled classifieds are economically hyperefficient. One Craigslist beats 10,000 fragmented classifieds. “

“I don’t think that news has become a commodity because newspapers make it free. Rather, I think that news is free because its a commodity.”

“Facebook, the social networking Web site, is adding free classified ad listings, putting it into competition with dozens of established companies like Craigslist and many newspapers.”

“Imagine the impact this could have on housing ads, such as searching for a roommate. Neither Craigslist nor newspapers can compete with prospective roommates being able to size each other up based on their Facebook profiles.”

On Facebook’s classifieds launch: “I’m not sure whether newspapers can compete on that level, since the amount of time and effort they have put into becoming a social network for their communities is in most cases approaching zero.”

59 million people (37.6% of active US Internet users) visited US newspaper sites each month during Q1, up 5.3% year-on-year (Nielsen//NetRatings NetView). The overall Internet audience grew 2.7 percent during this period.

“Don’t buy the hype.. order of magnitude differences are emerging between newspapers and newer strategic groups – in terms of attention depth, breadth, velocity, and prosumption intensity.”

Robert Freeman: “I’m worried that newspaper groups will take the foot off the development accelerator at just the point at which they’ve been given some breathing space to beat the beeb at their own game.”

“Regional newspaper group Archant is overhauling its network of news sites to allow readers to see a front page personalised to a radius around their location.”

“Once you’ve geographically tagged your stories, your ability to do hyperlocal sites is so much easier. I can create a web site for half a village if I want, because if all of the stories are tagged, they are the stories that come top of the list”

April 2007 national newspaper ABCs.

“I think journalism itself is a dated concept. We are now in the world of conversation… Just because it’s said in 140 characters or less doesn’t mean it’s not journalism.”

Suw Charman: “The historic role of gatekeeper, played until now by professional journalists, is obsolete. But new technology and increased civic participation are creating new opportunities for the mainstream media, and three key roles are emerging.”

“John Wilpers, editor in chief of BostonNow, a free weekday daily introduced last month, said he wanted to fill the paper with items that local bloggers submitted to the BostonNow Web site.”

Rupert Murdoch: “The outstanding example is the London Times. In good months it has 10 million unique users and is greatly expanding its franchise. It’s attracting enough advertising to more than pay its costs.”

“For a while, the new front page will be a facade concealing a busy building site, as work proceeds on an 18-month programme to redesign and rebuild every part of GU.”

“A new front page for Guardian Unlimited will allow us to better reflect the rich variety of content already on offer, and help tell stories in new and exciting ways.”

Martin Belam: “I’d like to see one of the papers take the plunge and offer full ad-supported content feeds… There are some areas which remain untapped, like personalised RSS feeds for search results, and putting content tagging on news stories”

“The simple fact is that unbundled classifieds are economically hyperefficient. One Craigslist beats 10,000 fragmented classifieds. “

“I don’t think that news has become a commodity because newspapers make it free. Rather, I think that news is free because its a commodity.”

“Save us the trip to Google and give us the links, please. Then we might just come back next time for more.”

“The only way [news organisations] can expand is to work cooperatively with witness-reporters, community members, experts, people who publish on their own, finding and sending readers to the best and most reliable among them. How? Via the link.”

“simply linking sounds rather like a combination of blogging and Google. I don’t think that is what is wanted from trusted news organisations. And I very much doubt if it will fill many pay packets.”

“The Guardian has appointed Washington-based journalist Michael Tomasky as editor of its US website, Guardian America.”

1. Have “pace and energy”, 2. Capture “the intimacy of internet radio”, 3. Choose a niche which would “never be accommodated on a mainstream radio station”, 4. “First-class radio production techniques”, 5. “Have an intelligent and witty tone”

“As bloggers we may have committed a grave strategic error – if we spun our points out to 200 pages with the customary filler… not only could we sell them at £10 a copy but people would apparently commit hours of their lives to reading them.”