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A few months back Edelman Public Relations and the blog search engine Technorati announced a partnership. The gist of it seems to be that Edelman gave Techorati some funding to fast track the expansion of Technorati into other countries.

Due to Edelman’s recent troubles, some folks are raising questions about the propriety of the deal.

Me? I’d prefer that a search engine I use not take money from a PR firm in the business of molding public opinion (note that this comes from someone who does interactive PR). People love Google because they trust it and it works. They trust that the results don’t contain any human bias.

By cutting this deal, Technorati opens itself up to criticism that they are tweaking their results to help Edelman and its clients. It rasies questions I wouldn’t want raised if I was Technorati.

What do you think?

For the first time (I think), a piece from our blog was highlighted on the news aggregator site, Techmeme. A lot of people criticize Techmeme as being elitist and thus boring, since it only tracks a small number of high profile blogs and online media outlets. Jeremy Zawodny sums up the criticism pretty well in this post:

“TechMeme is a useful service for many people. I used to be one of them. But I lost interest a while ago when it became far less useful for discovering stuff on that long tail of blogging. Anymore, a small subset of blogs (and increasingly non-blogs) hog much of the attention. That happens to be exactly what I’m not looking for most of the time.”

Personally, I find it reassuring that our blog is included since we are most decidedly NOT a part of any elite blogging club. It is also reassuring that the post that was highlighted from our blog was a substantive look at the magazine websites and not one of our more frivolous posts. If I had to pick a single post from the last month or two to highlight, it would have been that one.

Of course, it is a lot harder to criticism something when you are included in it….

Screenshot from Techmeme.

TBG has recently completed a research study called "Analyzing the Presence of Magazines on the Internet". In the wake of success surrounding our previous newspaper study, "The Use of the Internet by America's Newspapers ", we decided to conduct similar research on the magazine industry. Our study reviews the websites of the top 50 most circulated magazines in the United States and evaluates them based on the presence or absence of various Web 2.0 features. After finishing the research, it became clear that magazines are not making use of Web 2.0. Despite their failure in terms of Web features, it should be recognized that magazines have taken on a more effective general strategy than newspapers when it comes to the Internet. Instead of replicating printed content online, as newspapers do, magazines have made efforts to publish unique, Web specific, and easily digestible materials on their websites. In this way, magazines are using the Internet as a supplement to, rather than a replacement of, their printed publications. Magazine websites limit their article content and focus on pushing customers to purchasing printed subscriptions. Here are some key findings from our research:

• The most common online feature offered by magazines is RSS feeds (48 per cent). All of the RSS feeds offered by magazine websites are partial feeds. In addition, none of the magazines are including advertisements in their RSS feeds, while just 28 per cent of magazines divide their RSS feeds into different sections.

• Message boards/forums are offered by 46 per cent of magazine websites. This seemingly old-fashioned form of communication is extremely popular on magazine websites, particularly on the sites of women’s magazines.

• 38 per cent of the magazines require registration to view all of the site’s content. While this feature is only present on 23 per cent of the nation’s top 100 newspaper sites, it seems that magazines are still heavily reliant on website registration. It must be noted, however, that newspaper and magazine online registration is very different. The large majority of the magazines we investigated allow users to view article content free of registration. However, to participate in forums, registration is required. This seems to serve as a mechanism for monitoring content that people post on message boards rather than to collect demographic information, as is the case with newspapers. Thus, this 38 per cent figure largely represents magazines that require forum registration, not registration for the purpose of reading articles.

• 40 per cent of the magazines offer at least one reporter blog. Readers can comment on 17 of the 19 magazine blogs, while eight reporter blogs offer blogrolls, or external links to other blogs.

• Video is an offering on 34 per cent of websites.

• Just 14 per cent of websites use podcasts and bookmarking; eight percent allow comments on articles; and six per cent use tags.

You can read the report in its entirety here and view our data sheets here Please take a look and let us know what you think!

The Wall Street Journal ran an article entitled, “Is It News…or Is It an Ad? ” yesterday about the appearance of in-text ads on major news sites.  In-text ads appear as an underlined key word or phrase within an actual article.  If a user mouses-over it, an advertisement related to that phrase appears as a layer above the content, obscuring part of the text temporarily.

The article spends some time discussing the ethical concerns about tying advertising so closely to content and how this blurs the separation between editorial / news and advertising. Perhaps a more important point, one that was also included in the article, is that the contextual targeting of such advertisements can be way off the mark.

I personally think that the ethical dilemma is nearly moot regarding such ads.  The problem of contextual correctness is a potentially larger barrier to their success and a greater threat to personal sensitivities.  If an ad for, say, Viagra, appeared in an article about the Korean nuclear crisis in a sentence that reads, “DPRK’s impotent missile program has yet to produce an ICBM capable of reaching the mainland US” I think that neither Pfizer nor the readers of the article would appreciate it.

In my opinion, solving the context problem, which will occur eventually as natural language processing improves, will make in-text ads one of the most effective formats for advertisers and add value for consumers by placing the right product and information in front of them at the right time, and in the right place.

Steve Outing from Editor and Publisher wrote a good column yesterday about the progress newspapers have made in transitioning to online strategies.  He gave the industry a B- for their transition efforts thus far.

Here is a quick summary of his main criticisms of newspaper websites, all of which I agree with:

• Not enough are using video.  Based on our study, 61 of the top 100 newspapers offer video on their websites.  That number seems ok, but the truth is that many newspapers offer video as an afterthought.  It is rarely a fundamental part of the overall strategy.
• Better blogging still needed.  Newspapers are blogging (80 of the top 100 according to our research), but Outing believes papers should focus more on breaking news in their blog strategies.
• Classifieds still stink.  Outing rightly points out that classified ad sections at newspapers are stuck in the 1990s.
• Not enough interactivity.  In my opinion (and Outings), this is the big one.  In a nutshell, newspapers need to use their website to foster two way communication between readers and journalists.

Personally, I’d give the industry a C and add the following as additional areas of improvement:

• Work with your local blogging/podcasting/vlogging community.  Newspapers need to figure out ways to effectively incorporate user generated content into their offerings.
• Focus on local and special interest content.  Too many website emphasize generic national and international AP content that folks can read anywhere.  Newspaper should highlight their own original content – that is where they add value online.
• Give users different ways to discover site content.  Let users view your homepage based on the most viewed on content in addition to the traditional editorial view. 

You can read Outing’s piece here. 

[Via Techmeme]

Jeff Jarvis points to an interesting post by Chris Riley that compares the editor-controlled content on the BBC homepage to the content on the BBC Most Popular Now page, which is determined by usage patterns of site visitors. He found editors and users were in synch in the stories they chose 37% of the time.

Reading this reminded me to write a about the Most Popular feature on the New York Time’s website. I am not a voracious reader of the New York Times but like to check in on it every few days. I do this not to catch up on the “latest news” so much as to read some of the great long form pieces they churn out on a regular basis. I read the Times more like a magazine than a newspaper.

The Most Popular tool is a great way for me to pretty quickly find the most interesting articles to read. Look at some of the stories they are highlighting today:

• Gilded Paychecks: Lure of Great Wealth Affects Career Choices – A story about how professionals such as doctors are pursuing profitable alternative career options.
• What It Takes to Make a Student – A long piece that looks at whether “teaching poor children to act more like middle-class children help close the education gap.”
• Holiday Books: 100 Notable Books of the Year – Great list of the best books so far this year.
• One Spoonful at a Time – A very moving article about a mother’s struggle to get her anorexic daughter healthy.
• ‘Yours Truly,’ the E-Variations – Article about the hidden meaning of sign offs in email messages.

To me, the Times homepage is less interesting. It features links to articles about the big international news stories the day (which I’ve already heard about elsewhere), a bunch of business stories and some regional stories I’m not interested in since I’m in DC.

The Most Popular feature isn’t perfect – there isn’t an RSS feed to subscribe to or a way to view the most popular stories by topic (I’d love to drill down further). But for me it is a great way to quickly discover interesting Times stories I would probably have missed otherwise. The fact is the readers of the the Times are pretty smart folks and do a great job of identifying interesting content.

On Friday, our pro-bono client the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project (MAIP) launched a redesigned and revamped version of its website, www.exonerate.org.  MAIP is a member of a network of non-profits around the country that works to provide legal services for people wrongly imprisoned for crimes they did not commit.  The Project uses DNA evidence to exonerate and clear the names of people that are victims of shortcomings of the US judicial system. 

By embarking on a new Web program, MAIP hopes to spread awareness of DNA exonerations and garner support from interested lawyers, students, volunteers and professionals.  To do this, MAIP has integrated a blog, online volunteer and contribution forms, and methods for supporters to take action on behalf of the project via the Web.  The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project depends on the assistance of volunteer students and lawyers, so be sure to check out their website and consider lending a helping hand. 

Some interesting tidbits about the MAIP site:

• Our design and programming teams worked together to build the site entirely in WordPress. One of the problems MAIP had with their past website was that content became outdated and links to news stories died as the years passed.  We tried to battle this problem by setting up the Innocence Project so that they can control what content appears on their site and develop the ability to change their website as they see fit.
• The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project plans to communicate with volunteers and supporters via their blog.  Check this site for updates on exonerations, case information, and guest blog entries from board members or people the project has helped in the past.

We wish the folks over at the Mid Atlantic Innocence Project the best of luck with their online program–they are a great group of people who are doing exceptional work for those who need help. 

As a designer, I’ve struggled as how to best contribute to our blog. Most web design articles speak to people who aren’t designers and tend to focus on the obvious. I don’t intend to add to that.

So I decided to attempt a redesign of the USA Today homepage as companion piece to our recommendations to the newspaper industry. Senior designer Jei Park and I sat down and figured if we’re going to talk the talk, we might as well start walking as well. A couple of notes:

(1) In putting this together, we included every element of the current USA Today site. We wanted to come up with something that could actually be implemented, not something so conceptual that it could never see the light of day. In other words, we didn’t take the easy way out.

(2) We chose USA Today because it is the most circulated paper in the country, and which has had the same design for a couple of years. The point is to show what we think these things should look like. As a designer, the last thing I’m interested in is criticizing the work of other designers. That isn’t the point here.

(3) We want to hear your thoughts. If you like it, say so. If you hate it, say so. If you have changes you’d like to see, say so. If you think we’ve missed something, say so. We intend to act on the feedback and come up with a revised version in the next few weeks that takes into account what you have to say. The goal of this is to start a conversation about what newspaper websites should look like.

The design process almost always happens behind closed doors. Let’s see what happens when we get lots of good feedback from cross section of smart people. Click here or on the image above to see the full view. You can read Todd’s explanation of the features presented here. Tell us what you think.