-
Kevin: As expected, the Huffington Post has launched a third local site in Denver. They look to be trying to pick off lucrative verticals. It's a savvy strategy. Laura Oliver at Journalism.co.uk says: "Being able to roll-out new sections and topic pages quickly may suggest a landgrab approach towards attracting users."
Yearly Archives: 2009
links for 2009-09-17
-
Kevin: "A new study by University of Maryland researchers finds a growing use of Twitter among members of Congress, but that the purpose and content of their messages fall short of improving government transparency." They also performed the same analysis on members of the UK Parliament. "(A) full 80 percent of posts to Twitter by congressmen and -women are either links to news articles and press releases, or inform about activities and events like announcing that they are in a meeting, describing what they're eating and relating their daily workout regimen."
Detailed discussion of NPR re-design process
I’m a big believer in sharing stories about success, failures and even things that are in process. No one has the corner on good ideas, and often opening up the process can help get a wider view. No one has a perfect process, and often, we’re dealing with similar issues. It can feel a bit like the corporate version of group therapy, but it can be very useful, if for no other reason as a means of catharsis. Unfortunately, this happens rarely because most people maintain a relatively narrow view of competitive advantage.
Fortunately, AIGA, a professional design association, has written a detailed overview about the National Public Radio site redesign process. It’s invaluable for anyone looking to redesign and re-architect a news website. It speaks to goals, thinking and process.
They worked with Schematic to “provide the initial visual design and information architecture”. (Disclosure: Suw and I are friends with Dale Herigstad, the chief creative officer of Schematic and Jason Brush, the EVP of User Experience Design with the company. We’ve had the good fortune of swapping ideas with them over dinner, or in Jason’s case, also over blueberry pancakes before I started my US election trip last autumn.)
This post steps you through the entire process from goals to completion. Like many sites, NPR was working with a 6-yeard-old content management system and wanted to update the CMS and the design. My employer, the Guardian, did something similar recently.
One of the things I noticed from the write-up:
(NPR) had two editorial producers embedded in our group for the duration of the project. Their feedback was invaluable in helping us design a system that met the needs of our news teams.
I think this is important, but I would also suggest that journalists are involved in any process to choose or develop a CMS. As an online journalist for more than a decade, the CMS is either the enabler or the roadblock to efficient work. One of the reasons that I’ve been a big advocate of blogging tools is that they are faster and easier not just for the technically proficient but also for the novice. If your CMS trims even just 10 minutes off of every story a journalist writes or produces, that adds up to days over the course of a year. Clumsy tools take time away from creating compelling stories.
NPR also shifted to an Agile development process. That is a major challenge, and we at the Guardian also use Agile. I’m not going to go into the details of Agile here, but Suw and I have long thought that Agile is good for platform level projects like site redesign but not best suited for day-to-day editorial development.
However, in this review, I’d highlight one of the lessons NPR learned that relates not simply to Agile development but to wider issues of major projects like a site redesign:
Each one of us also had to be open-minded and empathetic. When conflicts arose over how best to solve a problem, it was imperative to remember that in the end, we were all working toward the same goal.
The article is well worth reading and digesting. I’m sure that people who have been through this process will see quite a few points they recognise, but this is an invaluable exercise in openness by NPR. It might not prevent you from facing the same or similar challenges, but at least you’ll know you’re not alone. Moreover, when conflicts arise, remember the real competition is down the street rather than down the hall.
links for 2009-09-15
-
Kevin: This project has been running for a while, but like many Google projects, it was running quietly. Suw used it to help a friend move a blog from Google's blogger to WordPress. Now, Google has taken the raps off of it. It really builds on the idea of data portability, which got quite a bit of notice a few years back but since then has gone a little quite. The Data Liberation Front, a group of Google Chicago engineers, has been working on a data liberation product. "What does product liberation look like? Said simply, a liberated product is one which has built-in features that make it easy (and free) to remove your data from the product in the event that you'd like to take it elsewhere."
-
Kevin: Jim Gaines constructs an extended metaphor about newspaper reporters and the decline of their business. He says about reporters: "I feel bad for you. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were great. And to watch you stare at death, unable to see your way up and over to storytelling heaven, where paper, ink and distribution are free, is in fact exquisitely painful."
I disagree with him. Some had their heads focused on work, and journalism is consuming work. However, many more have actively resisted change for more than a decade. Many have and continue to heap scorn on digital journalists. Journalists do have some responsibility in the decline of their business.
I will agree with him. The road is plainly marked, but it has been for more than a decade. I can appreciate his sentiment to try to encourage reporters to take advantage of this plain path ahead of them. However, had more chosen to take the path when times were easier, we wouldn't be suffering now that times are very hard. -
Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low: Overview – Pew Research Center for the People & the PressKevin: This is a really interesting bit of data about trust in the press in the US, but I wonder if it's not reflecting an increase in partisanship over the past 15 years in US politics as much as it is reflecting in a decline in trust. It's worth reading the partisan press section of the report. I think trust has declined, and partisanship is only a part of it. Without trust and credibility, it will add to newspapers woes as they struggle with business issues during the recession.
-
Kevin: The team building the DocumentCloud, a hosting system for news organisations to process and host documents, has released something very interesting, the CloudCrowd, "a heavy-duty system for document processing". They have detailed explanation of how it works, and they have released the code on GitHub. If you're processing documents, this is definitely something to investigate.
-
Kevin: Mindy McAdams looks at the New York Times' map of water polluters. Mindy has written a book about Flash and journalism so she knows what she's talking about when she says:
"Producing this kind of data graphic requires three personnel assets:* Expert reporters
* Data integration expertise
* Flash graphic expertiseThe New York Times might be the last newspaper in North America that has all three."
-
Kevin: The New York Times does an excellent visualisation of water pollution violations in the US as part of a large series on the subject. It's well done and allows people to see polluters near them either on a map or using zip (postal) codes.
-
Kevin: "Heaping criticism and scorn on media companies has worked well for Mike Masnick, operator of the popular blog Techdirt. Masnick is the firey commentator who blasts copyright owners and anyone else he believes has failed to accept that in the Digital Age most of the control now rests with consumers. He strongly maintains, however, that there are still ways for entertainers, artists, and journalists to make money. They just have to be developed." He's now working on experiments of whether content creators can make money by giving away content and seeking to generate revenue via alternate revenue streams.
"Instead of charging for his posts, Masnick offers fans a range of other items or services to purchase, such as a Techdirt T-shirt, spending a day with Masnick, or access to his stories before they're posted." -
Kevin: Alan Mutter highlights a survey for the American Press Institute that found: "A bare 51% of the newspaper publishers in the United States believe they can charge successfully for access to their interactive content, according to a survey released today. The other 49% of publishers either fear that pay walls will fail or just aren’t sure." And Mutter concludes: "While the success of launching a pay solution would seem to require a fairly broad and concerted approach among not only newspapers but also other news outlets, the survey shows little common ground among even newspapers as to how to proceed."
-
Kevin: "Today, the New York-based company is launching the transmedia property about an epic battle between science and nature, between sci-fi and fantasy. It starts as both a free-to-play online battle game, where you can start for free but have to pay for upgrades, and a kids’ comic book in the Japanese manga tradition (see image below of Dragons Vs. Robots: Blade Guardian). A live action film is under way in collaboration with Jinks/Cohen Productions, makers of the film American Beauty. Over time, the company also expects to produce novels, animated web videos, toys and more."
-
Kevin: Frédéric Filloux, editor for the Norwegian group Schibsted, gives a good roundup of the revenue picture for US newspapers and also some of the proposals for paid content including Brill's Journalism Online. He looks at some of the key components of a "modern paid-for system for news sites". The comments express a lot of cynicism about readers paying for news. I would echo the questions from John Einar Sandvand in the comments: "So what are the content areas and ways of packaging the content that makes it possible to charge online? What are the attractive premium products news sites can develop in the digital world?"
links for 2009-09-12
-
Kevin: "The BBC has announced plans to create an Open iPlayer following requests from international broadcasters who wanted to share in the technology."
links for 2009-09-11
-
Kevin: "Without any fanfare, Google has launched a new resource called "Google Internet Stats" which brings together industry facts and insights from across five different industries." It looks like a product being trialled in the UK. Very useful if you're looking for UK/European internet industry stats. Still wish that we had a Pew Center for Internet for the UK.
-
Kevin: Suw and I watched President Barack Obama's address to students in the United States, and one of the applause lines for Suw was when he said: "you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time". Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures talks about he has learned this lesson in his own life. He talks about the hard lessons he learned in the dot.com crash. Often when we succeed, we don't take away lessons that help us repeat that success, but if we fail and learn, we can make sure that even if we fail again, it won't be for the same reasons.
links for 2009-09-10
-
Kevin: Jason Fry writes: "I’ve written before about the possibility of a new compact: one in which journalists are “micro-brands” within the paper, tackling the expanded duties of chatting and shooting video and beatblogging (and thus creating new contexts for attracting and keeping readers) in return for a higher public profile and some portable brand equity. But that’s just half of it: Papers also have to face the reality that not only established but also new writers will want to pursue outside opportunities, whether their goal is to make more money, build their brands or just scratch a creative itch."
In some ways, I see and understand some of the ethical issues. On another level, this really grates. Big name writers have always operated as media properties unto themselves. Why is it right for them but not less established writers?
-
Kevin: "Ten private companies, a number of US Government Federal Agencies primarily in the Health sector and the OpenID and Information Card Foundations will announce this morning in Washington DC the launch of a pilot program to allow members of the public to log in to participating government websites with their credentials from approved independent websites. "
-
Kevin: "With journalists being laid off in droves, ideologues have stepped forward to provide the “reporting” that feeds the 24-hour news cycle. The collapse of journalism means that the quest for information has been superseded by the quest for ammunition. A case-study of our post-journalistic age."
This is an interesting piece showing how vested political interests seed the mainstream media with stories. The only point in which I might disagree with it is that this is not a product of blogs and the internet age. This has been going on for years with various political groups trying to spin the media. This effort might be aided by politically active bloggers, but it's not new. Basically, this is crowd-sourced opposition research. It's an old practice with a bit of a new twist.
Visualisation for news and community discovery
I think that visualisations and interface innovation hold great untapped potential for journalism, not only helping journalists and audiences to see trends and understand complex sets of data but also as a tool that will dramatically improve news site usability. The last few years have seen a lot of innovation in visualising data with the advent of mash-ups and easier visualisation tools from Google, Many Eyes from IBM, etc., but there has been too little interface innovation for news websites.
By and large, news websites still reflect their print heritage. They make the classic mistake of rigidly reflecting their own structure while ignoring the semantic connections that cross desks and departments. Most news web site interfaces obscure the vast amounts of information we produce as journalists. Good interfaces go beyond design and search to issues of information architecture, user experience and discovery.
I believe that interface innovation can unlock the power of technologies, helping them break out of a small group of technically adept early adopters to a much wider audience. The Windows-Icon-Mouse-Pointer interface helped open up computers to a much wider audience than when command line interfaces were dominant. The graphical web browser helped unleash the power of the world wide web. In 1990, when I first used the internet, I had to learn arcane Unix commands to even read my e-mail. In August 1993, I used the seminal web browser Mosaic for the first time in a student computer lab at the University of Illinois, where I was studying journalism and where that groundbreaking browser was created. I instantly realised that the web browser would become a point-and-click window to a world of information, communications and connection.
I’ve been interested in interface innovation since the late 1990s when I first saw the Visual Thesaurus from a company then called Plumb Design, now called Thinkmap which showed the connections between related words. The company did even more impressive work for Sony Music and EMPLive, an online exhibition for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project. In many ways, the work was way ahead of its time and sometimes ahead of the capability of the internet. The projects used advanced interface concepts more often found in CD-ROM projects of the day than the internet. One of the things that impressed me about especially the EMPLive project was that it allowed virtual visitors to the navigate the music collection a number of ways, whether they were interested in time, genre or a particular artist. The presentation also showed relationships between elements in the collection. I like Robin Good’s description on the Master New Media blog of Plumb Design’s work:
The original goal at Plumb Design was to create dynamic interfaces to information systems that reveal interrelationships often obscured by conventional methods of navigation and information display.
In many ways, Plumb Design showed what was possible with data, semantic analysis and rich interfaces more than a decade ago.
While interface innovation has not been an area of focus for most news sites, thankfully we’re seeing some tentative steps forward after a post-dot.com crash period of stagnation. Slate has launched a service called News Dots. Chris Wilson describes it like this:
Like Kevin Bacon’s co-stars, topics in the news are all connected by degrees of separation. To examine how every story fits together, News Dots visualizes the most recent topics in the news as a giant social network. Subjects—represented by the circles below—are connected to one another if they appear together in at least two stories, and the size of the dot is proportional to the total number of times the subject is mentioned.
Like EMPLive and the Visual Thesaurus, News Dots helps show the interconnection between stories. The feature uses Calais, “a service from Thompson Reuters that automatically “tags” content with all the important keywords: people, places, companies, topics, and so forth”. Slate has built its own visualisation tool using the open-source ActionScript library called Flare.
It’s a good first stab, but Slate admits that it is a work in progress. I like that the visualisation clearly links to articles and sourcing information. I like that the dots are colour-coded to show whether the dot represents a person, place, group, company or ‘other’. I think there might be a possibility to better show the correlation between the tags, but as I said, this is a good launch with a lot of possibility for improvement and experimentation.
Another project that I think shows the potential of improved interfaces is the Washington Post’s visual commenting system called WebCom. As Patrick Thornton explains, it is a visual representation of comments n the site. As new comments are posted the web expands. Those comments rated highly by other commenters or those that spur the most responses appear larger in the web. The web not only allows for navigation and discovery, but users can comment directly from within the visual web interface.
Thornton says:
The commenting system was built in two weeks by two developers at washingtonpost.com. A front-end developer worked on the user interface, while a back-end developer created the database and commenting framework in Django. Because the user interface was built in one language — Flash’s ActionScript 3 — and the back-end in another, the Post can take this technology and put it on different parts of washingtonpost.com with different user interfaces.
Wow, that’s impressive in terms of turnaround time. Django is quickly becoming an essential tool for the rapid development of journalism projects.
Thornton points out that it doesn’t work on mobile browsers or older computers. I might quibble with the focus on most popular comments or comments that spur the most response; comments that draw the most responses can often be the most inflammatory or intemperate. Likewise, popularity often becomes self-reinforcing, especially when it drives discoverability as it does in an interface like this. I would suggest that a slider that weights other factors might be useful. A simple search or tagging system might help commenters to find threads in the discussion that interest them. Again, this is a good first attempt and, with the development time only taking a few weeks, it shows how rapidly innovations like this can built and tested in the real world.
It’s exciting to see these kinds of developments. News organisations are struggling during the Great Recession, but often these times of crisis spur us to try things that we might otherwise think too risky. Whatever the motivation, it’s good to see this kind of innovation. If this can happen during the worst downturn in memory, just think what we can do when the recession eases.
links for 2009-09-09
-
Kevin: In a previous link, I highlighted Shane Nickerson's 46 stages of Twitter. Meg Pickard (head of social media at the Guardian but writing on her own blog) highlights the 85 stages of Twitter and how it is very much like the hype/adoption curve of blogging.
-
Kevin: You've heard of the 5 Stages of Grief, try the 46 states of Twitter. Notice how many times scoffing is involved in the earliest stages. It's humorous, but like many things humorous, there is more than a grain of truth.
Will the Asus “Eee-Reader” be a sea change?
Lots of people were tweeting yesterday about the new Asus e-book reader which, we’re told, would be a form factor unlike any of the e-book readers currently out there. Due out, possibly, before the end of the year, it would be a foldable dual-screen reader which will let the user read a text on one screen whilst surfing the web on the other. It will be full-colour, with a soft keyboard on one of the screens. With a price tag of somewhere around £100, it could make a very compelling device.
But I fear there is a big, fat, juicy fly in the ointment. Neither Kevin nor I have been impressed with the software that comes built into cheap electronic devices. We bought my mum a little MP3 player a few years ago and whilst it looked nice enough and was within her budget, the user interface was nothing short of appalling. Even I had a few problems understanding how the thing was supposed to work and as far as I know, my Mum hasn’t touched the thing in months, if not years. And as for Kevin’s GPS device wrangling hassles, let’s not even go there.
We’ve also not been impressed by the Asus Eee PC’s operating system, Xandros. It’s not because Xandros is based on Linux, which we both use regularly, but because Asus’ implementation of Xandros makes it difficult for the casual user to install software not included in Asus’ package. It’s like Microsoft making it difficult to install anything but Microsoft-approved software on your laptop.
When it breaks, you need quite a bit of know-how to fix it. Kevin has spent hours working on a friend’s Eee, first getting it to run a Twitter client and then fixing a BIOS update that buggered things completely. Updates to the Eee change the location of user application preferences, which can then break shortcuts to user-installed software. That makes installing your own software challenging. This is something that users would be up in arms about if it were Apple or Microsoft.
The mock-up of the Asus “Eee-Reader” looks lovely and the price is certainly user-friendly, but will the software be? I have shied away from the other e-readers because a portable device of that size that I can’t write and check email or Twitter on is unappealing to me. The users interfaces of the devices I have played with have been at best clunky and at worse frustrating and proprietary software means users can’t install their own software (as far as I’m aware).
If, like the Eee PC, the Eee-Reader uses either a Linux or Windows variant as its OS, users will at least be able to customise their device to some extent (depending on hardware limitations and know-how). At the moment, netbook users who have the Windows machine actually have more freedom than those on a Xandros machine, because Asus have made it so difficult to install software on Xandros. If the Eee-Reader gave me that choice, I’d probably end up plumping for Windows, even though that comes with its own issues.
What might be interesting would be if it was capable of running Android. As Kev tells me, “people have some interesting hacks with Android.” I’ve never had a chance to properly play with Android so I’m not sure if I’d be keen on having it on my e-book reader or not. I would guess that ‘Hackintoshing‘ it won’t be possible; there are specific hardware requirements for a Hackintosh and as yet we have no idea whether the Eee-Reader will meet them.
My worst-case scenario is that Asus would produce some sort of proprietary OS with only limited functionality that users can’t add to. If Asus did that, they would be missing a trick – the success of Apple’s App Store shows that people want to be able to install applications of their own choosing onto their phone and that developers are willing to spend time creating them. If the Eee-Reader’s hardware specs mean that software needs to be specially developed or adapted for it, then Asus should use an OS that’s easy to develop for and create an open marketplace that encourages an ecosystem of applications for users to choose from.
The initial description of the Eee-Reader sounds attractive, but unless its software is usable and extensible it’s not going to tick the box for me. I can’t carry round a laptop, and iPhone and an e-reader; my back would never forgive me.