Loren Baker of the Search Engine Journal reports that Google News has tweaked it algorithm (hat tip: MediaPost).  The search engine hopes to its users more relevant results about breaking news stories.

One of the tweaks aims to better identify the news source that was first in reporting information about a story.  Further, the tweak will better highlight fresher reporting as the story develops.

Another tweak that I find really interesting and helpful to local media outlets is that Google aims to place more emphasis on providing users with reports from media outlets whom are local to breaking news.  Thus, if there is flooding in Houston, Google wants to highlight reporting from, say, the Houston Chronicle instead of a wire report picked up by the Los Angles Times.  That is if the local coverage is at least equal in relevance to articles from elsehwere.

I think that this is great news for local news outlets since Google is explicitly trying to promote them.  Of course, this does not negate the need for local sources from working harder than larger organizations that have more resources and enjoy a larger presence on-line, but the search engine's changes could level the playing field.

Mathew Ingram yesterday proclaimed that "free is better" when it comes to news sites, and he offered new evidence to support this assertion.

He pointed to web traffic data of the New York Time's website that TechCrunch analyzed.  According to comScore data, traffic to the paper's site has surged since it ended its Times Select subscription pay wall back in September. 

Between August and October this year, site visitors increased by an impressive 64 percent along with a 52 percent growth for page views.  Clearly dropping the pay wall has boosted the traffic to the site.   

The web analytics geek in me would love to see how the average time on site per user has changed in this time period.  One would think that Times Select subscribers would spend more time on the site since they're paying for it and are probably Times fans.  If that's correct, then perhaps the average time spent on the site has dropped since people who come for free are: 1) not paying for it and 2) aren't proving loyalty already by paying a fee.

What do you think?

I read today that an editor for the blog LAist, Tony Pierce, accepted a position running about 25 blogs over at the LA Times. I thought it was interesting to see such a huge paper, with such a mixed record in the online world, making a blogger an important part of the paper's team.  There's some pretty extensive coverage about this on Friday's edition of LAist, but I thought I'd pull out a couple interesting points from an interview with Tony Pierce.

Zach: Day one, what would you like to start doing?
Tony: On day one I would like to throw out a bunch of ideas to my new boss and find out which ones she likes and which ones she thinks are lame. And then I would like to do the cool ones that we agree on. But I'm not insane, the Times is an old, established, successful organization. Things don't change as quickly as you guys probably think. LAist was a different beast. One Monday last year Jake said he wanted Food every day. Two weeks later we had food every day. I'm pretty sure a huge organization like the LAT works a tad slower.

Andy: You've been successful as the lead editor of a group blog — LAist. How will you motivate / approach the Times people to absorb your inspiration and ideas and go with it, considering the general resistance to change within age-old publications?
Tony : That is the big question. Can someone from outside of journalism inspire real pros? And can the MSM break through in the blogosphere. Currently there's not one newspaper blog in the Technorati Top 100, which is a challenge that I'm more than happy to take on.

Andy: Are there any news sites that particularly impress you as far as their approach to blogging and attracting UGC?
Tony: The Houston Chronicle has led the way for newspaper blogging and user generated content. And I really like the NYT's City Desk blog - City Room. But the entire industry has only just started to really wake up because they had resisted the whole thing for so long. Rightfully. And now that they know that digital is the way to go, it's right for them to get it together. But as that Elvis record sorta said: 100 million blogs can't be wrong.

Andy: Will you be restricted by any Times policy from what you can write about (aside from the obvious)?
Tony: Probably. I'm joining a huge corporation. Something that I am used to. I've worked for huge places before. And even being editor of LAist I toned down what topics I wrote about on my personal blog, so i have no problems with that. Since 8/11/01 when I started blogging, I've written about 7,500 posts. I've had plenty of time to rock the mic. Now I'd like to help others reach the blogosphere, because it's a great audience.

Andy: Do you have any plans to create blogs of general — not just localized — interest? For example, NYT has things like an Open Code blog, WSJ has All Things D ….
Tony: The one thing that blew my mind while I met with the Times is that they really are open to many many ideas. One of the things that we were very successful at on LAist were expanding our coverage to things outside of LA. That pissed off some readers but sometimes you just have to shrug and say **** the haters. So yes I hope the Times continues to think outside the box and continues to trust new perspectives, because now they are on a huge playing field - the web - that has a lot of wide and varied competitors who aren't restricted to certain boundaries or rules or pasts to live up to. So to compete with them you really have to play a slightly different game to a point. But the Times has had no problems going outside of LA for a lot of their best stories They are a leader in International news, therefore they should continue to learn from that success in regards to blogging about things outside of LA. Believe it or not I think that will be easier to do at the Times than at LAist.

Andy: What about hyperlocal?
Tony: Likewise they can do hyperlocal better than even the LAist because they have a full time staff of people who are used to covering the metro beat and they know who to talk to, how to get there, and how to get it written in a professional manner. At LAist I couldn't get anyone to go to that lameass Hollywood Santa parade even though a few of us live a few blocks away. So there are pluses and minuses to an all volunteer blog staff, and that night was definitely a minus.

I'll be interested to see how Tony's transition to MSM goes.  What kind of effect will he have on the LA Times?  And conversely, what kind of effect with the LA Times and MSM have on Tony Pierce?

On Monday Duncan Riley reported on TechCrunch that 17 more newspapers have joined in on Yahoo!'s partnership with local news sites; these papers include 16 regional papers owned by The New Times Company but not the NYT itself. 

A main part of this partnership is that local newspapers can buy job listings from Yahoo!'s HotJobs site.  In return the local sites upload job listings to Yahoo!'s HotJobs, and they can charge a higher price for these listings.

The idea behind this partnership seems logical.  Yahoo! gets access to more job listings that are provided by its partners while the local newspapers can offer those who purchase job listings a greater forum in which their positions are advertised on.

So far, this logic has worked out for Cox Newspapers, which owns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  According to the Associated Press on Monday Cox has enjoyed increased revenues.  For instance, Cox owned Austin American-Statesman enjoys a "market share for online recruitment ads is now 40 percent, up 19 percentage points from a year ago."  

The fact that more papers have signed in on this partnership is an indication that it is working.  However, Yahoo! is not alone in offering such services.  For instance, Gannett and Tribune — the top two newspaper publishers (as measured by circulation) — haven't joined Yahoo! yet.  Perhaps they are too interested in their own jobs site, CareerBuilder, that they run with McClatchy — a fellow newspaper publisher.  Further, there are other jobs sites out there like Monster.  That leaves plenty of options for papers like The Washington Post, which hasn't joined in the Yahoo! partnership, to consider; that's what the paper told the AP that it's doing. 

Thus, as newspapers and advertisers alike realize that on-line ad space is growing in importance, more publishers are considering banding together to deal with advertisers.  Looking forward, if partnerships like Yahoo!'s are profitable, a key question is: Who else wants to get in the game of selling and culling on-line ad space on local news sites?

CNET  had an interesting blurb a couple of days ago about newspaper websites–more people are using them!

"The number of people visiting U.S. newspaper Web sites rose 3.7 percent year over year during the third quarter, even as their print editions reported lower advertising sales.

More than 59 million people, or 37.1 percent of all active Internet users, visited the papers' Web sites during the quarter, up from 56.9 million a year ago, the Newspaper Association said, citing data supplied by Nielsen/NetRatings."

Check out CNET for a longer blurb and more stats . 

Michael Cosentino over at the International Herald Tribune's Developer Blog shares some of his thoughts about comment sections on news sites – a topic that we cover in our newspaper study.  In his post titled "How are visitors using comments?" he shares some of the issues that he and his team have mulled over as they upgrade the comment section on their site. 

His post focuses on three main points that are crucial to successful comment sections: location, topic selection, and lead-off questions. 

I personally liked his discussion of the editorial side of managing comments.  On one hand his site wants to present topics that many site visitors would have something to contribute, but just because people would talk about the latest exploits of a celebrity, that doesn't make it suitable for every news site.  On the other hand, a site shouldn't select topics that are so esoteric — like seventh century underwater basket weaving — that most of the visitors would have nothing, nor desire, to say.  Editorial decisions must achieve an interesting balance.

Granted, what works for the IHT will not work for other news sites, but this post is valuable since Cosentino shares several factors to consider when designing community features of a site.

Hat Tip: Kevin Anderson at Strange Attractor

A few days ago Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine noticed an ad for a Tag Editor (Editor 2.0?) job at Britain's The Guardian.  Jarvis explained this is exciting since metadata increases the accessibility and utility of a news site to its audience.

This made me think of our newspaper study this year.  Of the top 100 American newspaper, as ranked by circulation, only one — The Plain Dealer in Cleveland — uses tags on its website.  I wonder why so many papers have avoided tagging but admire The Guardian for willing to make the venture using folksonomy (collaborative taxonomy) since it presents both great challenges and utility.

As social media guru and Everything is Miscellaneous author David Weinberger explained during NPR's All Things Considered on June 11, 2007 in a commentary piece "The Value of a Man-Made Mess, on the Internet" that tagging allows one to classify web content in a variety of ways.  For instance, tags like "American," "food," "yummy," and "crust" are all applicable for a picture of an apple pie. 

Thus, through the use of tagging, a news site doesn't have to limit itself to a small set of sections like metro, style, and national; by using tags it can create sections like "Southern California Fires 2007" or not fret having to exclusively place a story about horse race betting in the sports or business section.  Why not both?

Of course, such freedom and a lack of consistency can make it hard to find anything or tie related information together.  However, that's why The Guardian is going to hire someone to manage this full-time.

After all the work I've done on newspaper websites and talking with a group of newspaper publishers last week, I realize that I get asked the same questions quite often.  There are some common misconceptions in the newspaper industry regarding the Web, and I'd like to take this opportunity to highlight and correct these typical mistakes. 

1. The Internet is the Enemy.

This is a big one. As newspapers continue to lose print circulation, the Web is becoming the scapegoat.  Newspapers should know that the Internet is only an enemy if they fail to use it correctly. Largely, the web is an untapped resource for newspapers.

2. We must display all of our site's content all over the homepage.

If you look at typical newspaper websites, the content is often strewn all over the place without any sense of organization. Newspapers often feel the need to display all of their content on the homepage.  This is a mistake–too much content can be overwhelming.  Littering a homepage with buttons and links distracts people's eyes and prevent them from focusing on anything.  Newspapers are better off leading with a couple of big headlines and pictures, letting a strong navigation do the rest of the work.

3. People will pay for content online.

If the current situations at NYT and WSJ aren't enough to prove this, I direct you to Mark Glaser's posts over at MediaShift here. People don't want to pay for average, generalized content online. They might pay for personalized and unique content that provides a specialized service.  But charging for run-of-the-mill stories just isn't going to work. Unless you really have something superior to offer, registration barriers are only going to hurt your traffic. Newspapers are better off offering their online customers the ability to create an optional user profile–in this way, newspapers can get demographic info valuable to advertisers, and users get something in return. 

4. We can't compete with Craigslist and other classifieds providers.

This is just wrong. Newspaper can compete in online classifieds. But to do so, they need to revamp their systems for creating ads and make them much more user- and web-friendly.  Here's an example of how this can work.

5. Websites are complicated and we don't have the time to deal with them.

While #4 was just wrong, this is just silly.  Barriers to entry to the online world–costs and technical requirements–are dropping everyday.  The Web is getting easier and cheaper as we speak.  Sites like the New York Observer (built in free, open-source Drupal), are examples of how newspapers can build great sites using technology with low technical and cost barriers.  No excuses! 

I spent the weekend up in Boston, MA at the New York Press Association's fall meeting. It was a great conference attended by publishers of all sorts of newspapers in New York State.  It was a diverse group of people–from seasoned Web veterans to those just getting their newspaper websites started.  

I  had the opportunity to give a presentation Friday morning about opportunities for newspapers online–with my talk based on the results from our 2007 newspaper study.  I tried to show that the Web, while a direct competitor for print, doesn't have to be solely a threat to newspapers. Rather, the Web can present a myriad of opportunities for newspapers, if they just use a little creativity and try new things.  My presentation was well received, and I think that everyone in the room was able to take away some tidbit of information for use at their home paper. You can take a look at my slides here.

Some other speakers at the conference made some really interesting presentations. Peggie Stark Adam presented the results of Poynter's 2007 EyeTrack study, which uses special equipment to track the way people read content in print and online.  She made some great points, and the study's major conclusion, that people read printed content and Web content differently, proves what a lot of people have been thinking for a long time.  Instead of rehashing the results here, I will simply point you to the results on Poynter's website. 

Bill Ostendorf, from Creative Circle Media Consulting, spoke about his experiences redesigning newspaper websites. He was a dynamic speaker, and reiterated a lot of what we have been saying about newspaper websites on our blog and in our studies, but in a much more in-your-face kind of way.  He really got the point across that newspaper websites generally stink, and showed some ways that his company has helped newspapers redesign their sites.  His company has developed what look like pretty effective content management systems for newspaper homepages and online classifieds sections.  A couple of things he said really stuck with me:

"Newspapers are Stupid! Don't Copy them!"–By this, Bill meant that newspapers, even the big ones, often get the Web wrong.  Despite this, newspapers have been copying each other online for years, which has resulted in LOTS of bad newspaper sites.

"Newspapers are smart and experienced! Learn from them!"–By this, Bill was referring to the success newspapers have had with engaging readers in their print editions. Newspaper websites can definitely take some cues from the basics here and improve their sites immensely.

Bill also made some great points by comparing the Apple and Google sites, two of the most successful websites in the history of the world, with typical newspaper sites like the Providence Journal, the Philadelphia Daily News , or the Honolulu Advertiser. I think his phraseology was, "Would you dress like that??"  Point taken.

Anyway, I thought the conference had a great mix of speakers, and there was definitely something for all kinds of newspaper publishers there, from discussions about design, CMS, advertising, marketing, and other topics.  So, NYPA, thanks for having me! 

We're starting a new series here at TBG–Friday's Five.  Every Friday we're going to publish a top 5 list.  The topic of the list will always change, but the five items featured in the list will always be related to one another.  For this week's list, we're going to build on our recently published magazine study and run down our five favorite magazine websites.

This list was pretty difficult to build. Many of the magazine websites are extremely similar, so picking the 5 best was a tricky process.  Making matters more complicated, some of the most robust sites are part of larger online networks (such as Money Magazine, which is part of CNN.com or Martha Stewart Living, which shares content with the larger Martha Stewart network).  To be fair, our list only includes websites that are unique to a particular magazine.  Here goes nothing.

1. TV Guide.  Not only does this site have tons of content related to TV and movies, including reviews, previews, video snippets, and listings, but it also has some interesting blog features.  The 40+ celebrity blogs (comments allowed!) are augmented by community blogs maintained by readers. The site has a solid design and navigation, and is all together well-done.

2. Rolling Stone.  Photos, videos, and blogs.  User reviews and ratings of movies and cd's.  Those features alone would be enough to get RollingStone.com on this list.  The site really surprised me with their section for listening to music.  After just a quick download of a mini-Rhapsody player (no registration required!), users can listen to music featured in the print edition of Rolling Stone.  Another cool feature are the celebrity playlists. I mean, who doesn't want to know what Carrie Underwood's favorite songs are? 

3. Better Homes and Gardens.  Pulled in by the shnazy feature box on the homepage, BHG.com has lots of nifty features that you might not notice right of the bat.  The "clip it" feature lets you save tidbits of information ("just like tearing a page out of a magazine") in your myBHG.com account so you can use them later.  This was also the only magazine site I noticed that has a downloadable widget that you can put on your desktop to get updates from the website.  The site also features several interactive home design tools, which are pretty fun to mess around with.  One downside-the features are only available if you register for the site (it's free).

4. Family Circle. From the same network as BHG.com, the Home and Family Network, Family Circle offers similar functionality as BHG.com–reader comments for articles and features, bookmarking articles and features in their site accounts, and a tag cloud linked to message boards appears on the main site.  There also are many up to date blogs and links to blogs on other sites within the Home and Family Network.

5. US News and World Report . Nothing too earth-shattering here.  However, I appreciate the site's design, which is much more organized and "sane" than most other magazine websites on our list.  The content is professional, interesting, and easy to browse.  There are lots of blogs (although you can't comment on them, so let's instead call them 'columns'), and there is a section where they publish letters to the editor, which can be emailed to the site.  I think the key here is that this publication has really made an effort to make some of its highly valued content (primarily in the rankings section of the site) available to a larger audience by publishing this info online.  It also sets itself apart from other magazine websites by keeping things simple–the site isn't overcrowded, loaded with doohickeys, or cluttered with too many headlines.

What do you look for in magazine websites and what are some of your favorites?  Share in the comments. 

As a follow up to our most recent newspaper study and last year's examination of magazines, our team has finished some research evaluating America's top 50 commercial magazines (according to circulation) based on the presence or lack of certain web features.  The purpose of this research was to determine how American magazines are using the Web, and how the online programs of magazines have changed over the past year.

Here are some key findings from the report:

• More magazines are using reporter blogs in 2007 than in 2006.   Fifty-eight percent of the magazines researched now offer reporter blogs on their sites, compared to just 40 percent in 2006.  Ninety three percent of these blogs allow reader comments, while just 31 percent use blogrolls, or links to external blogs.

• Newspapers fared better than magazines in nearly every category in 2007.  The only exception is the use of tags; four percent of magazines use tags compared to just one percent of newspapers.
• The usage of required registration increased since last year from 38 percent to 42 percent.
• Video usage nearly doubled in 2007, with 60 percent of the magazine websites we researched now offering video content.  In 2006, just 34 percent of the websites offered this feature.

The following chart summarizes the report's results.  Many more charts are included in the actual study.

In general, we have found that magazines are slower at adopting Web 2.0 trends than newspapers.  We can hypothesize that this is due to the differing cultures surrounding the two types of print media: newspapers and the content they present are essential to most people's daily lives.  In contrast most magazines are something "extra", and are often focused on entertainment.  Perhaps for this reason, magazine websites tend to be geared more toward the casual browser rather than a serious reader or application user. 

You can read our full report here and check out our data here.

We received some fantastic feedback in regards to my post last week about our picks for the best US newspaper websites. I'd like to take a moment here and point out some other great websites that our readers brought to our attention.

A few readers questioned why our list only referred to US papers. Due to limited resources, our initial research only addressed the websites of publications here in the US.  Last year, we conducted research on some international papers with help from our readers.  In general, however, the Guardian and the International Herald Tribune are two examples of great newspaper websites. Their designs are superior with clean and uncluttered layouts.  Both of these sites have successfully differentiated themselves from their print counterparts by combining aesthetic appeal with solid content and technological offerings.  The Guardian tends to be known for offering high quality reporter blogs, which are expanded upon on the site Comment is Free, a blog- and comment- driven site tied to the Guardian's website. 

Commenter Genevieve pretty much sums up the International Herald Tribune site in the comments from the original post:  

I’m really surprised to not see the newly redesigned International Herald Tribune on this list: http://www.iht.com

It’s really clean and easy to read, the navigation “cloud” is interesting. I love how easy Search is to get to, and the video box on the right is cool. Plus, who doesn’t love big photos and big headlines on the article pages?

'Nuff said.

Some smaller US papers also received some positive reviews:

(more…)

As a follow-up to our research on newspaper websites that we published recently, we decided to break out a list of the best examples of “good” newspaper websites. Steve, Todd and I collaborated on the following list, judging sites not only on their web features but also on the design, aesthetics and general usability of the site [Note: this list only covers the top 100 US newspapers in terms of circulation, which is what our study looked at. We're sure that we missed some great smaller papers.].

(1) New York Times: We love the general feeling of the NYT site, which is pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate. The site is loaded with great features, and the website is rumored to be dropping its annoying pay wall, TimesSelect, in the coming months.

(2) Washington Post: Not only do we like the design and the navigability of the Post’s website, but we really love its database applications, which provide interesting tidbits of information difficult to find elsewhere. The Post’s website has been a huge success, and is one of the best examples of newspapers creating an online product that is significantly different from its print product.

(3) USA Today: Social networking. Social networking. Social networking. Did I mention that this site has the most robust social networking features out of any of the newspaper websites we researched? Oh yeah. And this site has social networking.

(4) Houston Chronicle: We like the non-newspaperish feeling that this homepage exudes. It’s significantly different from any other newspaper site. Chron.com offers its users interactive features such as comments and blogs, has a great RSS system made available right on the homepage, and looks good while doing it.

(5) Denver Post: The homepage of this site isn’t much to write home about, but registering with the site automatically gives you your own blog and your own photo gallery for uploading and sharing photos. When you add in some interesting political features, including a voter’s guide and a poll for picking candidates and combine that with alternative content views, internal and external bookmarking features, as well as links from stories to relevant materials, you’ve got all the ingredients necessary to build a great website.

(6) Knoxville News Sentinel: I’m not sure a newspaper website could look any better than this one. When we talk about de-cluttering sites and making them look “clean”, this is what we mean.

(7) Fresno Bee: Great homepage, interesting CrimeMap feature, and overall just a solid site with lots of technology and an easy-to-use format.

(8) Austin American Statesman: We really like the unique layout and coloring of this site’s homepage. We’re also giving this site points for allowing anyone to blog and for linking to many of the site’s blogs directly from the homepage.

(9) Tennessean: The blog-like feel of this site’s homepage helped it make our list. We also like the strong presence of multimedia on the homepage.

(10) San Jose Mercury News: On this homepage, we like the simple layout of the article headlines and descriptions. I also like the inclusion of the box with blog headlines, user photos, forum titles, and podcasts toward the top of the homepage. The site loads a bit slowly and is a little light on the features, but it does have all the core elements of a good site.

What are your favorite newspaper websites? Share them below in the comments or on the Bivings Report Wiki.

Update: We edited the info about the Times dropping Times Select for clarification. It was reported on August 7th that they would be dropping it. They did not drop Times Select on August 7th.

Last week The New York Time purchased [clarification: the paper is, as Jeff Jarvis notes, "hosting it, selling ads on it, promoting it, but not buying it or hiring its creators"] the sometimes irreverent Freakonomics blog run by University of Chicago economist Dr. Steven Levitt and writer Stephen Dubner. Clearly the newspaper saw that this informative blog had a community worth transplanting to its web site.

Was it a brave move to purchase a blog that isn't control by NYT staffers? Yes, especially since Leavitt pondered about how to maximize a terrorist attack — commenters went wild –shortly after his blog switched over to nytimes.com.

However, buying a blog is another example of how old media organizations are missing the point. Old media companies should focus on fostering innovative new media properties themselves and not simply purchasing them when it makes sense cents. [Update: While partnering with a blog like Freakonomics is definitely a wise move, it doesn't take place of the need for in-house innovation.]

As we've observed here at The Bivings Group, newspapers and their traditional media counterparts seem schizophrenic when it comes to new media. They want to succeed but are unwilling to allow their employees to do what it takes.

In fact, sometimes their current employees won't cut it as The Economist's Project Red Stripe proves. In this case, employees were given time, resources, and freedom to create something new and extraordinary but, as Jeff Jarvis explains, failed to capture the new media or web 2.0 vision perhaps since they came from a traditional background.

BBC News, in contrast, hired Ben Hammersley — who has a new media background and is young enough that he isn't bogged down by the old media model — to launch its multi platform social media reporting on non-BBC sites. Will this idea succeed? I don't know, but in this case the organization is trying and testing to develop its own new media project instead of buying one. Hopefully, the Beeb will continue to allow social media savvy folk like Hammersley and its Director of Global News Richard Sambrook to experiment.

If old media companies want to truly tap into and succeed in the new media world, they need to rethink their strategy. Instead of buying successful blogs, podcasts, or social networks, perhaps they should either hire or reassign people who are new media innovators and give them freedom to develop a successful product.

Further, it is likely cheaper to hire people than acquire established products and brands. [Update: Perhaps a partnership, as in the case with the Freakonomics blog, is cheaper, but this can come at an expense when the deal ends if The New York Times hasn't found a way to build new features and communities around Leavitt and Dubner's genius.] 

A friend of mine works for Gannett, which owns USA Today and heaps of local newspapers and TV stations throughout the country. Well, most of the local sites are horrible at the very least. However, the company is in the process of rolling out new designs across their network.

The Desert Sun site from Palm Springs, California is one of the first sites to get the facelift:

Compare it to the site of its sister publication The Californian — which will likely get its new design soon — from Salinas, California:

I’m not going to do a site review, but can you tell the difference?