Our recent newspaper study dealt exclusively with the features present on newspaper websites. We didn’t look critically at the design of these sites. The adoption of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) makes it possible for web developers to create rich designs while keeping the file size of pages to a minimum.

In looking at newspaper websites, it becomes clear pretty quickly that their homepages are bloated. They try to stick as much data as possible on the homepage (including ads).

Given that, we decided to look at the file sizes of the homepages of the top 10 newspapers, and how much of that file size is devoted to advertising. Note that file size does not always equate to load times. Other factors such as the number of database calls and the quality of the hosting environment play big roles.

These numbers were grabbed using the Firebug Firefox extension. Sizes were recorded both with Adblock on and off, so we can get an idea of how much space is devoted to advertising. (more…)

We have recently completed the 2007 study of America's top 100 newspaper websites, entitled "American Newspapers and the Internet; Threat or Opportunity?". As the newspaper industry continues to suffer declines in readership and circulation, using the Internet to expand a newspaper's reach is becoming more and more important. While many industry experts fear that the Internet will spell the end of newspapers as we know them, our team here at TBG feels that the Internet presents newspapers with a unique opportunity to make up for lost circulation and readership. This study explores these concepts, as well as the difficulties facing newspapers regarding online advertising, shrinking staffs, and reaching out to consumers. Our research examined the websites of the top 100 newspapers in the United States, as determined by circulation (via the Audit Bureau of Circulations). We evaluated all of the websites on the presence of lack of various web features. Here are some of our key findings:

• The use of RSS increased in 2007 by 21 percent since 2006. Now 96 of the papers we researched are using this technology. Within this group, 93 papers offer partial text feeds, while three offer full text RSS feeds. No papers have begun embedding advertisements in their RSS feeds.

• Ninety-two percent of America’s top 100 papers now offer video on their websites. This represents a significant jump from 2006, where just 61 percent offered video. In this group, there is a mixture of local, Associated Press, and original content available on newspaper websites. Thirty-nine papers offer original content, 26 use AP video streams, 13 offer video content from local news outlets, four papers use all three technologies, and 10 papers use a mixture of two different types of video.

• The number and quality of reporter blogs also improved in 2007. Now, 95 percent of papers offer at least one reporter blog. Ninety-three percent (88 papers) of these blogs allow comments. In 2006, 80 percent of the papers offered blogs, with 83 percent (67 papers) allowing comments.

• One-third of newspapers now allow comments on articles. This represents a 14% improvement on 2006 statistics, when only 19 percent of papers allowed comments on articles.

• The number of papers requiring registration increased by six percent from last year’s results. Twenty-nine percent of the nation’s top 100 papers now require users to register before gaining full access to their website. Of this group, three papers required a paid subscription, while 26 papers required free registration.

Overall, use of online features by newspapers improved across nearly all the categories when compared to last year's research, "The Use of the Internet by America's Newspapers."

Read the study in its entirety here and let us know what you think! Our research data is available in Excel format here.

After about a year of allowing site visitors to comment on any story, The Sacramento Bee in California is reworking its commenting policy. 

At first the paper allowed commenters to hide behind pseudonyms.  However, to a few people's surprise, this freed some commenters to earn the rather mild title from staffers of "provocateur" as they slung vitriol of all types at those who disagreed with them. Some site participants stopped participating out of annoyance and disgust.

To counter the provocateurs, the Bee will soon require all commenters to user their real name on the site.  While, as ombudsman Aramando Acuna notes, this will likely lead to fewer comments, many readers support stripping anonymity away from commenters.  Further, the paper hopes that this policy will lessen the need for it to monitor and approve or reject every comment before it is publicly posted.

Hopefully, this will work.  Let's also hope that no one will hijack another person's name and spew vitriol on the site to disgrace a their reputation.  Identity thieves don't need credit card numbers, addresses, and social security numbers to harm another's life.

Yeah, you can never win, but for everyone's sake, let's hope that policies like those that The Sacramento Bee is implementing will succeed.

When it comes to digital strategy, it seems like The Politico is and will throw spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks.

I attended an event yesterday evening hosted by the public-private business organization Rosslyn Renaissance with The Politico's executive editor Jim VandeHei and chief political correspondent Mike Allen (hat tip: FishbowlDC).  (more…)

Mark Glaser over at PBS Mediashift has pointed out a couple of interesting articles from the San Francisco Chronicle.  Published just a week apart, these articles take opposing sides in the controversy over the value of new media and its affect on newspapers and traditional outlets.  Neil Henry 's article, "The Decline of News ", pines whines over the damage the Internet has caused the "old" media, while Dan Gillmor, in "Journalism isn't dying, it's Reviving ", extols the role the new media is playing in creating a diverse news atmosphere. Both articles are worth reading, as both authors make some good points.  I'd like to take some time here to respond to this articles, taking a closer look at the opinions of both authors.

(more…)

Here at The Bivings Group we're fans of Adrian Holovaty; he has developed fascinating on-line database news features for news sites like for The Washington Post.  Today, upon recieving a grant from the Knight Foundation that he'll use to develop an innovative site at EveryBlock that will make local news more useful.  He's leaving the Post to pursue this venture.

Another Knight Foundation receipent is (more…)

Scott Karp at Publishing 2.0 has an interesting post about why journalists should blog independently from their employers (hat tip: Mathew Ingram).  He gives seven reasons: (more…)

In preparation for our newspaper study that will begin in a few weeks, I was poking around the Washington Post and USA Today websites, specifically looking at the blogs offered by the two papers.  I wanted to find a logical way to compare the success of these blog networks.  Having tried using Alexa in some previous newspaper research and being less-than-satisfied with the reliability of the results, I decided to see how these blogs were doing on Technorati.

What I found was pretty interesting.  The Washington Post has a massive networks of blogs.  I found 41 of them today, and I am sure that there are others buried within the site's architecture.  It was hard to track all of the blogs down, as there is no one place where they are all stored on the site.  In contrast, USA Today has a much smaller network of blogs–20.  At first, it might seem logical that because the WaPo has more than twice as many blogs as USA Today, its blog network must be more successful.  However, this is not the case.  Instead, I think this is clearly an example of the mantra "quality, not quantity".

I tracked down all the URLs  for these newspaper blogs and plugged them into Technorati, recording the authority, rank , and date of the most recent post for each blog.  At the end, I averaged these figures and found that the USA Today blogs are doing significantly better than the WaPo blogs.

Of the 41 WaPo blogs, 7 were incredibly out of date with no updates for several months:

Reporting for Duty
Your Post
County Connections
World Opinion Roundup
Richmond Report
World Cup
On the Plane

On USA Today, only two were out of date, and these were dedicated to time-sensitive topics (holiday shopping and March Madness), which aren't really relevant the rest of the year:

Holiday Shopping
Bracket Racket

Further, the WaPo has 4 blogs that have no authority or ranking in Technorati.  None of the USA Today blogs face this problem.

In my comparison, I found that the WaPo blogs have an average rank (1 is best) of 191,669 and an average authority (the higher the better) of 221.76.  USA Today blogs have an average authority of 233 and an average rank of 119,212.4.  As a benchmark, The Bivings Report has a rank of 6,197 and an authority of 513. Between all of the blogs I researched, just 6 have a better ranking than The Bivings Report. In general, most of the newspaper blogs are doing pretty poorly.  But, as indicated by these data, some were much better than others.

In order to expand this research, I tried the same process for the New York Times blogs and Boston.com blogs .  However, it didn't appear that Technorati was tracking any of these blogs.

I really think that while blogs enhance the interactivity and variety of content on newspaper websites, it is absolutely possible for a newspaper to stretch itself too thin.  Perhaps some newspapers should cut down on the number of blogs they offer, substantially improving the quality of the blogs they choose to maintain.  Outdated blogs or blogs that no one reads don't do anything but clutter a website.  My advice would be for newspapers to cut down on the number of "junk" blogs and instead focus on publishing quality content on a smaller number of blogs.  What do you think?  Is it quality or quantity that really matters in this case?

You can check out my excel datasheet here.

A lot has changed in the newspaper industry since we published our study of newspaper websites last summer.  In order to get a better picture of the changing landscape in the world of online news, we are going to publish a sequel to last year's study.  In our preparation for the research, we're outlining the categories and criteria we want to track.  Here are the categories we analyzed last year:

RSS

• Does the site offer RSS?
• If so, does the feed include ads?
• Does the site offer RSS for different sections?

Most Popular

• Does the site offer alternative content views such as most popular, most read, or most emailed?

Video
Podcasts
Chats
Reporter Blogs

• Does the site have reporter blogs?
• If so, can users comment on these blogs?
• Do reporter blogs have blogrolls?

Comments on articles
Registration
Bookmarking
Message boards/forums

This was a pretty extensive list, and we plan to carry over many of these criteria to this year's study.  Some key changes we are thinking of making are dropping "chats" and "message boards/forms" from the list because we feel that these tools are a bit dated.  In addition, we'll add a category for availability of mobile content and integration user-generated content, such as photos and videos.  I think these are two areas that our study really missed out on last year and adding them will be a big improvement.  Finally, it would be interesting to see how many newspapers are offering social networking features like the Washington Post and USA Today.

What would you like to see our study address?  We'd love to hear your suggestions.  You can either leave them in the comments below or add them to the TBR wiki on the 2007 Newspaper Study Criteria page.  Thanks for your support!

It is mini search engine optimization (SEO) for journalists lesson time!

News outlets want healthy traffic levels on their websites so that they can charge more for advertising.  In fact, The New York Observer's Michael Calderone quotes a former Forbes.com staffer as saying that their former workplace is "a page-view sweatshop " (hat tip: Romenesko).  Forbes isn't the only news outlet concerned about getting more page views.

Last night I met a writer for National Geographic News.  We were chatting about her job and when I mentioned that my company helps news organizations better harness the Internet, she mentioned how it was funny that her editor emphasized that headlines should have important keywords first, which is not how traditional journalists are taught to write headlines. This headline writing technique is aimed at attracting more visitors from search engines to the site by ranking higher for keywords web surfers use. (more…)

Late last week the Washington Post launched a light social networking component called My Post. The feature allows users to create a profile that will be linked to whenever a user comments on a Post article. The profile includes personal information about the user and aggregators all of a user’s comments. The feature also includes the ability send private messages to other users, make other users your “friend” and to recommend the posts of other users.

A screenshot of a profile is below and you can view a profile page here. Note that this feature is powered by Pluck’s Sitelife software, the same package used to power the social features on USAToday.com (although the Post version has less features).

Via Cyberjournalist. 

Mark Glaser over at MediaShift had an interesting post yesterday where he published an interview with "Mr. Magazine", magazine journalism expert Samir Husni.  The interview really caught my attention because Mr. Magazine seems to be advocating the same strategies that we have been writing about here on TBR.  The interview is definitely worth reading, but I will put some of the highlights here:

Glaser: I’ve noticed that the local newspaper here, the San Francisco Chronicle, is trying to make their paper more local and use more graphics, photos and color on the front page.

Husni: Two things we have to do. We have to use more narrative and more pictures. If you look at the Financial Times that was completely redesigned last week, a lot of their stories are a full page. But you read that story and you’ll get everything you need to know about that subject. More magazines are moving toward more narrative. I tell my magazine clients we have to deepen the story and chase the photographs. For the service part, send people to the web.

The biggest mistake we’ve made in this industry is that we send people to the web, and we’ve left them there. We offered them something that’s free, that’s like a blizzard that surrounds them with information. But at no website do they ever say, ‘By the way, you need to go back to the paper to read page 20 where we have this article that you’ll only find on page 20 today.’ There’s no two-way street, we’ve created a one-way street and people get lost in the jungle [online].

Glaser: So you don’t suggest that people put magazine content online at all?

Husni: No. The biggest mistake we are doing now, and I don’t understand why, is we are duplicating magazine content and putting it online. Why would I have the exact same thing on the screen if it exists in print?

Glaser: What is your suggestion to newsweeklies? Their circulation is going down overall. Do you think it was a mistake to put all their content online?

Husni: Definitely. The day I cancelled my subscription to Newsweek was when I saw in print a snippet of an interview, and below that it said, ‘For the whole interview go to msnbc.newsweek.com.’ I am paying money and you are offering me less in print than what I can get for free on the web. That’s why I was very happy when Time reinvented itself with more in-depth [stories] and more photography. They cover two or three topics, but I still need editors to figure out what my readers want each week.

One of the ideas that we stressed in our magazine study that we published last year is that newspapers and magazines should not publish their print content online.  This sort of regurgitation of material isn't of interest to anyone.  When magazines and newspapers duplicate content in their print and online versions, they are in essence forcing consumers to make a choice to either read the content online or read it in print.  By publishing the same material in both outlets, news sources limit their readers' interest to either the website or the print version.  However, by publishing unique content online that supplements the print content, magazines and newspapers can benefit from having their readers visit the website and purchase print versions.  

With this in mind, I definitely agree with Mr. Magazine that newspapers and magazines should change their print versions from addressing the "four W's and the H (who, what, where, why, and how)" to providing more in-depth analysis on a select number of topics.  The website can then be used to disseminate important bits of digestible information quickly.  If media outlets can strike this fine balance, I think that Mr. Magazine's prediction that there is room for both print media and online media will be correct.

I noticed a nifty new feature on The Washington Post's website this afternoon.  Campaign Tracker uses information from a variety of sources, including campaigns and media to compile a database that stores information about events where the 2008 presidential candidates will be making appearances.

This feature uses a variety of techniques to keep things organized.  Campaign events are stored on Google Maps, which makes getting directions and pinpointing locations quite easy.  In addition, the Campaign Tracker allows users to filter events by candidate, date, and state, which makes sorting and searching the events simple.  

The Campaign Tracker is an interesting and useful tool, and it is something that you don't often see on newspaper websites. The Campaign Tracker is creative, and provides a new way at looking at the 2008 Presidential campaigns. 

The Washington Post seems to have a knack for creating this type of niche content.  In the 2006 Senate cycle, the paper built a database for storing and displaying political ads produced by all the various campaigns.  This feature, called Mixed Messages, provides WashingtonPost.com readers with a centralized location where they can watch and compare all of the political ads produced by campaigns around the country. 

The WaPo isn't alone in its endeavors, however.  The New York Times has gotten into this process by launching its database for campaign finances about a month ago, which uses a map application to show the fundraising  stats for all of the presidential candidates.

I would like to see more newspapers experiment with this kind of tool.  While it's definitely outside of their core competencies, I think that this type of coverage helps fill a niche where regular people otherwise have difficulty finding information.  By filling these gaps with tools like those the WaPo and New York Times have developed, these publications can be a prime source for specific news. 

I received an email the other day from Brian Kroski, VP/GM Online at the New York Observer, a well-renowned weekly paper in New York City.  The Observer recently redesigned it's website, and I was quite impressed with the results.  

The redesign of the Observer has integrated many Web 2.0 features that we have discussed here at TBR. Here is some of the functionality I noticed on the site:

• Alternate Content Views.  The Observer provides its online readers with lots of different ways of getting their news. The site gives readers the option of reading articles according to the most read, most commented, and top tags. This is a great way to get readers involved with the news.

• Tag clouds.  The Observer online has many different tag clouds.  I think this is a great feature and I really wish more newspaper sites used tags.  Tags not only make it easy for people to find information they are looking for, but they also give the newspaper itself a great method for organizing its content.  The Observer has tag clouds on the homepage and every individual section of the site, giving readers lots of different tools for searching for content.  A fun feature that the site provides is their "head cloud", which shows the people that are most discussed about each day in the paper.
• Layout and Design.  I really like the design that the Observer came up with for this site.  It's easy to navigate, content is clearly divided into relevant sections, and looking at the site's pages doesn't give me a headache, as many other newspaper sites do.  The Observer was able to get away from the traditional "online newspaper vomit" theme that is pretty common among newspaper websites.  Their homepage provides ample content, but it is organized in such a way that it is pleasing as opposed to overwhelming.
• Bookmarking, bookmarking, bookmarking.  As many other news sites are doing these days, the Observer provides a plethora of bookmarking options on each of its articles. Currently, readers have 11 social bookmarking options, including (among others), Facebook, Newsvine, Reddit, and Digg.

In addition to these features, The Observer allows comments on all of its articles and blog posts.  Unfortunately, not much discussion has occurred on the site so far, but I imagine this will change as the redesign gets more publicity.  I tested the commenting feature by responding to an article, and my comment appeared immediately.  So it seems that the Observer has done what many papers are unwilling to do: relinquish some aspects of control in order to really open a site up for discussion.

On the downside, the site does not provide any video or user submission features. I don't see this as a big problem, as newspapers are, after all, sources of printed content.  Just as it's better for political candidates to refrain from blogging than to have a "bad" blog, I think it's better for newspapers to stick to what they know –print content–rather than attempt a multimedia program and do it poorly.  It's important for newspapers to know their limits and do the best they can with the resources they have.  So cheers to the Observer for maintaining its integrity and not trying to expand too far beyond its reach.

Also, the site seemed a little slow to me, with the time between viewing different pages longer than it should be.  This got a little annoying, but wasn't a big problem. 

Overall, I think the NY Observer has come up with a great online program.  Many other news publications can learn from this weekly's redesign.  

You can read more about the paper's redesign here. 

What do you think? Use our commenting feature to write your own mini-review of the New York Observer website. 

I saw an interesting tidbit on Forbes.com this morning related to our discussion of newspapers, hyperlocalization of news, and the internet.  Mark Whitaker, "editor of Newsweek from 1998 to 2006 and now vice president and editor-in-chief of new ventures for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (WPNI)", did a short interview with Forbes.com and gave some insight as to ways news outlets can battle declining circulation and take advantage of increased interest in online news.  Whitaker identifies three specific items that I think sum up the task at hand for online newspapers and magazines:

• "Break news no one else is breaking".  For local papers, I interpret this to mean focusing on local content.  For national outlets, find a niche and stick to it.  General interest publications are going by the wayside—newspapers need to find a unique angle in order to succeed.

• "Have writers who have a distinctive point of view that you're not necessarily going to see someplace else."  In layman's terms, let your reporters BLOG freely!  Don't limit them with paranoid rules and regulations .
• The third item "has to do with user experience. Traditionally, one of the things that people have loved about their favorite magazine was the way it looked and felt. What everybody has to do online is try to create a
  user experience that makes people fall in love with their site."  This is self-explanatory.  Most newspapers and magazines need to redesign their websites to offer modern functionality and better overall experiences that will make readers want to come back time and time again.

It was great to hear from someone in the media business that actually "gets it".  I thought this three-pronged approach was refreshing because it condensed a pool of complicated ideas into three digestible goals for newspapers.