Has online journalism become ordinary? Are the approaches starting to standardise? Little has stood out in the online journalism coverage of this election – the innovation of previous years has been replaced by consolidation.

Here are a few observations on how the media approached their online coverage:

Interactive graphics and databases

Just as the swingometer has come to characterise televised election coverage, the election map has become synonymous with online coverage. From the BBC and ITV to the Independent, Times and Guardian, everyone had their red, blue and orange pixels at the ready.

The more adventurous integrated swingometers into their maps, included calculators and search fields. The Telegraph’s was powerful; the Guardian’s integrated well with third-party tools such as The Straight Choice and Democracy Club. Sky went for style, with a handful of visualisations from poll results and timelines to historical results to how the House will fill up. But across the newspapers and broadcasters this was the same as in previous elections, only better and more widespread.

Blogs, liveblogs and microblogs

News websites were riddled with blogs, liveblogs, and more blogs, with CoverItLive used widely. Journalists seem more comfortable with the rough nature of blogging now, which suits the patchiness of election coverage well.

User comments were also much better integrated than in the past, while many included the ability to share on Twitter or Facebook.

Twitter itself was a natural feature in many places, done without fuss. The Sun featured a widget on their homepage; most others promoted specific election and correspondent feeds somewhere. The Mirror’s morning-after angle predictably looked at how the celebrities tweeted the election. And for all the trumpeting that this was turning out to be a TV election rather than a new media election, Twitter and Facebook played important roles as complements to the television coverage, forming part of the reaction measured by ITV; being drawn upon for questions on Channel 4 news; occasionally driving or puncturing the news agenda, as with #nickcleggsfault. It sometimes felt as if the print media were being cut out of the conversation.

Video

We’re now at a stage where experiments have been completed, problems solved, and online video is normal. The BBC live streamed their coverage onto their at-a-glance live coverage; as did ITV. The Mirror embedded video reports on its homepage; The Guardian had its own video but also embedded BBC coverage; The Sun embedded live Sky coverage. And Sky itself had a gallery of video highlights.

What was perhaps most surprising is that the election didn’t have a ‘YouTube moment’ – or perhaps it did, but I missed it.

That’s it?

Media organisations had had years to polish up their skills on all the above, and the result was professional, successful, and useful. Unlike previous elections, there seemed little to get really excited about, however.

One thing that was apparent was how news organisations appeared to be softening in their attitudes to the rest of the web: embedding video from and linking to competitors; pulling feeds from civic websites; working with users.

Some things did catch my eye, though. ITV’s integration of Facebook into its election page looked particularly interesting, allowing users to watch online and chat online, rather than having the TV on. The Times’ last-minute election chartporn showed just how far visualisation could go if pushed. And The Guardian’s #ukvote experiment and how others used its politics API showed where collaboration could be taken.

The most fascinating experiments came from outside of the mainstream media: DemocracyClub and YourNextMP did a fantastic job in mobilising people to identify and interrogate their candidates. Vote for a Change calculated if your vote could contribute to a hung parliament; My Gay Vote showed how parties had voted on LGBT issues; PoliticsPosters gave you a customised window poster based on your postcode; Election Champion crowdsourced where parties were spending money on billboards; and Vote Power Index highlighted the weaknesses of our voting system by telling you how much your vote was actually worth. Hyperlocal blogs came to the fore. And while most people overlooked the council elections, Open Election Data sought to make those more transparent. In fact the biggest missed opportunity was the council elections.

Did anything catch your eye particularly about election coverage online?

Finally, here’s Martin Belam’s excellent timeline of the ‘digital election’:

PHP Freelancer

The Mirror wants to watch out – as it looks like it’s selling links, even if it isn’t (as I first posted here and which later went hot on Sphinn). Several stories on the mirror.co.uk site share all these characteristics, and must look extremely suspicious to Google:

• All the stories contain three links to the same MoneyExtra page.
• All the links use different anchor text.
• The text happens to be competitive search terms.
• MoneyExtra isn’t mentioned in the article itself.
• They were all published in August.

There’s nothing wrong or illegal about selling links if that is what they’re doing. But it’s likely to get you penalized by Google if they spot it as it’s done to manipulate their search results for SEO reasons (Google counts the number of links to a page as a measure of its importance).

Pages on Mirror.co.uk from August

Now let’s look at several pages from Mirror.co.uk.

Headline: Sorting out the best credit card rate

This page from 20th August contains three links to the MoneyExtra credit cards page, using the link text “best credit card rate in the UK”, “best credit card” and “credit cards”. There is no mention of MoneyExtra in the article.

Headline: Why do credit card providers offer credit cards with 0% interest?

This page from 20th August contains three links to the MoneyExtra credit cards page, using the link text “credit card providers”, “0% credit card interest rates”, and “0% credit card deal”. No mention of MoneyExtra in the article.

Headline: Best credit card transfer: Does one size fit all?

This page from 5th August for once contains, er, three links to the MoneyExtra credit cards page, using the link text “best credit card”, “0% balance transfer rate” and “best credit card balance transfer rate”. Again, no mention of MoneyExtra in the article.

Headline: Is it too late for debt management in England?

This page from 20th August contains, er, three links to the MoneyExtra debt page, using the link text “debt management”, “debt” and “debt advice”. There is no mention of MoneyExtra in the article.

Headline: What is ‘government debt management’?

This page from 20th August contains, guess what, three links to the MoneyExtra debt page, using the link text “Government debt solution”, “debt management plans” and “debt”. There’s no mention of MoneyExtra in the article.

Something a bit different!

This page is a bit different. It’s from the 20th August, naturally. But it contains FOUR links to the MoneyExtra car insurance quotes page – and mentions MoneyExtra in the article!

Some other pages

Other pages from August (not the 20th this time) which contain three links to a specific MoneyExtra page but which don’t mention MoneyExtra in the article include: this one and this one and this one (OK, that one’s only got two links) and this one (as has that one) and this one.

Conclusion

As I say, there’s nothing wrong with selling links, and there’s no actual evidence that that’s what the Mirror is doing. However, this looks like the sort of pattern you’d see with sold links – so the Mirror wants to watch out it doesn’t get hit by a penalty by Google.

PHP Freelancer

The Sun has had more stories submitted to Fark, the social news site for stranger news stories, than any other UK newspaper. That may be no surprise, but it’s the Guardian wot’s runner up.

The news follows the discovery that the Guardian is top at Reddit, the Times at StumbleUpon, and the Telegraph at Digg.

The graph is based on an analysis of the total submissions for each newspaper site to Fark. It shows that, just as with those other social news sites, the FT, Mirror and Express are trailling in last.

PHP Freelancer

The Guardian has had more stories submitted to Reddit.com than any other major newspaper site.

The news follows the Telegraph topping the Digg list and the Times topping the StumbleUpon list.

The graph shows how many pages have been submitted to Reddit for each site. It’s based on an analysis of newspapers’ Reddit submissions that also suggests the Telegraph is catching up with the Guardian – they tied for the number of stories submitted over the last week.

PHP Freelancer

The Daily Telegraph has more stories submitted to Digg, the social news website, than any other daily newspaper site.

Times Online may be winning at StumbleUpon, but the Telegraph has:

• had more stories submitted to Digg,
• more stories on the front pages of Digg,
• and its most-Digged story has more Diggs than any other newspaper site’s top story.

The graph shows how many pages have been submitted for each site that made the Digg ‘front pages’ (ie proved sufficiently popular).

It’s based on an analysis of newspaper site pages submitted to Digg (which also suggests that the reason for the success of the Telegraph and Mail is that their users are more likely to Digg than those of other newspaper sites).

PHP Freelancer

All self-respecting newspaper sites have share and social-bookmarking functionality, such as links to Digg, Reddit, Fark etc.

But if the results of StumbleUpon are typical then:

1. Times Online is miles ahead of its rivals when it comes to users sharing / bookmarking its pages.
2. The FT has a lot of work to do.
3. Adding icons for an individual service makes no difference to how often users submit a given page.

The following graph, based on an analysis of newspaper websites’ Stumbles, shows that Times Online has had 699 pages Stumbled.  In second place is the Sun, with 487.

Neither site lists StumbleUpon in its ‘sharing’ list.

And both sites are miles ahead of the FT, Mirror and Express. They all list StumbleUpon as an option – yet none of them have even reached three figures for Stumbled pages.

PHP Freelancer

In a guest post for the OJB, The Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation give an overview of how news organisations are treating cartoons online.

Cartoons have long been an essential part of British newspapers, so why do so many of those publications fail to do justice to drawn content on their websites?

The digital display of the web is a visual medium and cartoons and illustrations thrive on it. Yet many newsprint employers have not been quick to develop the advantages that drawn imagery offers as a digital communication tool and as existing sticky content for their sites and products.

Too many publications hide, or don’t publish, drawn work on the web, sometimes through lethargy and often through an unwillingness to discuss reprint fees with the creators of the work. (Almost all of the people working in this branch of visual journalism are self-employed.)

This is not to say that cartoonists aren’t without fault, sometimes we aren’t the quickest to embrace change either, although we have now set up the UK’s first digital sites for the working professional cartoonist: The Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation and its online diary, the Bloghorn.

At a recent London event, the BBC’s Andrew Marr wondered whether we were a trade union. We are not, and it was a costly question for him: he was kidnapped and is now one of our patrons, along with the Times columnist Libby Purves.

To be fair, some publications are beginning to buck the trend, and decent examples of the display and promotion of drawing can now be found at the websites of most of the major newsprint titles and some broadcasters.

The Guardian stands out, not least for its roster of cartoonists, running from Steve Bell, through to Kipper Williams, Martin Rowson, Nicola Jennings and Harry Venning. (Why no online place for Ros Asquith or Kate Taylor?)

The Telegraph does well too, particularly for its high-up, front-page promotion of Matt Pritchett and of Peattie and Taylor’s cartoon strip Alex as key pieces of quality editorial content.

The Independent’s much improved web showcase also does well for Dave Brown, Peter Schrank and Tim Sanders. This is in contrast to The Times site which lacks a web archive and a sensible display solution for the drawings. This does no favours to the work of either Morten Morland or Peter Brookes.

Mac at The Daily Mail doesn’t fare so well either, as he finds himself relegated to the Coffee Break pages, a distance from his original front page link. The signed-print offer is enterprising though. The Mail also buy-in a US animated cartoon from Joe Martin.

On the homegrown animated front, Matt Buck’s clickable Hack cartoons appear at Channel 4, and the Telegraph scores again for this innovation with Pat Blower’s Livedraw, which also shows weekly as video.

The Spectator magazine now offers a simple click-through slideshow of some of its weekly gag cartoons and Private Eye continues to publish a selection of work from talent such as Pete Dredge, Martin Honeysett, Ken Pyne and Royston Robertson.

The Mirror’s promising cartoon home page (wide selection) is spoiled by appalling sizing of the cartoon strips which are close to illegible in display.

The Sun does better on this front but the home page is so advertising graphic heavy, its a wonder anyone can open it at all. The Sun’s editorial artist, Bill Caldwell, is hard to find too.

Of course, cartoonists are lateral thinkers and resourceful, and many have followed the self-publishing road. Below we list below a few notable cartooning blogs.

One of our older magazines, Tribune, has run a political cartoon blog for more than two years. You can find Alex Hughes, Martin Rowson, Matt Buck and the great cartoonist John Jensen there regularly.

On the creative front, we were pleased to see Steve Bell of The Guardian doing something called a Visi-blog from the Democratic Party National Convention in Denver, USA. That’s visual progress isn’t it?

The Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation

Cartoon blogging:

• PCO’s Bloghorn http://www.procartoonists.blogspot.com
• Pat Blower and Christian Adams of the Telegraph
• Matt Buck (Hack) of Channel 4 News
• Wilbur Dawbarn (wiLbur)
• Alex Hughes of Tribune
• Alexander Matthews
• Morten Morland of The Times
• Royston Robertson
• Bill Stott

PHP Freelancer

I’m currently in the middle of a 3-week break from computers – in the meantime, here’s an article I wrote for Press Gazette the week before last, about the past year’s raft of newspaper website relaunches:

The last Luddite has left the building. With almost every national newspaper having revamped its website in the past twelve months, Richard Desmond has finally joined the club and relaunched Express.co.uk – and the Daily Star site is set to follow later in the year.

In an industry of technophobes, Desmond was the Piltdown Man of news. Before last week Express Newspapers’ only attempt to tackle the threat of the internet was to offer an ‘e-Edition’ of the Express and Star which amounted to little more than a PDF with animated pages.

But as his competitors launched MySpace-inspired sections and video-heavy offerings – and even resorted to lime green in their attempts to appear up-to-date – something had to give.

Still, it’s something of a watershed moment that sees Express journalists moving to a 24-hour reporting cycle, plans being made for online video and podcasts, and even web 2.0 elements such as blogging and social networking.

In reality, the new site looks like it was created by someone who has had a website described to him, but never actually seen one. The ‘blogs’ are actually opinion columns with nary a link to be seen, video is being outsourced, and online journalists will work separately from print hacks.

But it’s the move into social networking with ‘MYExpress’ that represents a quantum leap for this most reluctant of online newspapers. The service, which allows readers to create a personalised homepage, blog, and communicate with other users, has the potential to create a community of Disgusteds from Tunbridge Wells that may well represent the group’s cash cow.

So how did Richard Desmond – the man who sold the Express websites for £1 in November 2000 – come to join the rush online? And why the recent rush by national newspapers generally to give their sites a makeover?

Desmond can blame his rival Rupert Murdoch. It was he who, in 2005, warned the American Society of Newspaper Editors that unless his industry woke up to the changes brought about by new media they would be “relegated to the status of also-rans.”

Murdoch had sneezed, and the whole news industry began to catch a web fever.

The Times and Telegraph websites, which weren’t even in the top ten online news destinations, have since been overhauled and are making significant ground on leader The Guardian. Tabloids began to see that there was more to the web than monetising page 3 girls. And the middle market just worried about internet chatrooms.

Murdoch wasted no time in buying up promising web properties including, most spectacularly, MySpace, a property which was then cloned on The Sun’s ‘MYSun’ feature.

The Sun’s transformation has been most surprising of all – the reactionary paper has proved technologically progressive as the paper embraced video and virals, slideshows and podcasts, created blogs that actually understood the medium, and built a ‘Lite’ version of the paper for time-starved visitors. Perhaps most tellingly, the paper realised the web presented a window into the regional classifieds market. Oh, and we mustn’t forget the legendary video version of Dear Deirdre.

The Mirror, once again, has been left playing catch up. Its February redesign was ripped apart by many observers for a range of misjudged decisions ranging from buying in video content from the US (coverage of American Idol, anyone?) to the use of capital letters on the home page. The site has five sections – news, sport, showbiz, blogs, and… ‘more’ – a vagueness which perhaps gives some indication of a lack of direction behind the scenes.

Video has been a recurring theme throughout all newspaper website relaunches as ad sales departments realised they could tap into the television advertising market. The Mail has been no exception with its ‘showbiz video’ section, while a number of newspapers have bought in content from the likes of ITN and Reuters. And the ability to encroach on broadcasters’ territory without that pesky Ofcom to worry about has proved particularly useful for tabloid exclusives such as The Sun’s ‘friendly fire’ video and a range of NOTW stings.

The three major broadsheet websites have led the way in the use of blogs and podcasts, video and galleries. The Telegraph’s relaunch focused on the systems behind the site, building a multimedia ‘hub’ and training journalists to work across print and online, video and audio. But The Times’ makeover resulted in an all-singing site that belied its staid reputation and currently looks the most modern of national newspaper sites. The Independent plans a low-key revamp this year but for the most part has sat and watched from the sidelines like a kid waiting to be asked to join in the football game.

So where do the sites go from here? Last year The Guardian’s commentisfree raised the bar for newspaper blogs, while its Flash interactives remain a unique demonstration of the possibilities of new media. But a wholesale revamp is likely to be part of editor Alan Rusbridger’s planned £15m investment, while the move into television production with Guardian Films demonstrates that the group have ambitions beyond getting reporters to read out the day’s headlines: it has already brought dividends with a series of slots on prime time ITV News.

The Sun continues to innovate in the tabloid market, and the launch of a mobile edition suggests they understand the next big challenge for newspapers: if Desmond thought his work was done with new media, he’d better think again: the battleground is moving on.

PHP Freelancer