Keyword: onlinejournalism. From basic ‘shovelware’, where articles written for print are simply reproduced online, through articles with media clips and live Q&A sessions, to multimedia clickable interactives that combine text, sound, video and animation, online journalism seems to be a medium still trying to find its definitive voice. Whether there ever will be a definitive ‘form’ of online journalism is a question worth considering. Perhaps it’s more likely that most non-online journalism will take on its interactive qualities in some form or another, sooner or later: we already have the “text-us-your-opinions”, the “check our website”, and the “press the red button”.

Jonathon Dube of CyberJournalist.net has an excellent article about the range of online storytelling methods which includes some great examples of the various forms. Please comment if you have your own examples to add to the list.

UPDATE (Jan 8 05): Thanks for the comments. Dean highlights this Flash interactive from the Guardian about what the ‘threat alert levels’ actually mean. Simple idea that’s easy to do and works well. Likewise the Bird Flu interactive explaining how different countries were affected by the outbreak, as well as the science behind the disease – and this interactive on the Iraq elections. Giving more options to the user is this interactive on ethnic communities in London: the user can explore the map to see where different communities are concentrated.

Simon picked up on this article from the Jewish Post – it’s a good example of how not to do online journalism: the article runs for pages, paragraphs are too lengthy to read on screen, and there are no links or attempt to engage the user. Likewise this article on the 39th Superbowl – and this one too – gives the user nowhere to go next – although it does offer a printable version and email article option.

Much more like it is this Daily Mail article about the Soham case, which gives the user lots of options for further information, including archive stories and a slightly distasteful picture gallery.

Also worth looking at is a comparison of articles about the immigration issue: 1xtra’s involvement of the user by allowing them to post opinions, versus The Guardian’s more flat treatment.

Keyword: search. The Search Engine Journal’s article about using video search engines for promotion throws up some useful links: Google Video I’ve already reported on, but also listed are:Blinkx Video Search, Yahoo! Video Search, SingingFish, and Rathergood.com.

Keyword: blogging. “Need to link to a New York Times article from your weblog? Enter your link here, and we’ll give you the weblog-safe link”

Keyword: Online Journalism. The Education Guardian reports on the SpinWatch website, what looks like an excellent resource for journalists. Written by researchers, journalists, and, now, anyone who wants to post, it aims to expose “hitherto unknown – or undeclared – links between organisations.” There is some editorial control: the founder, David Miller, professor of sociology at the University of Strathclyde, says “All articles must have their sources checked and verified by the vetting committee before they are allowed to appear on the site.”

Another quote from Miller make a compelling case for journalists using the site:

“You [The Guardian] ran a story about a report from the International Policy Network claiming that climate change was nowhere near as bad as had been previously thought,” he says. “What you didn’t say is that the IPN is a small company … that has received a $50,000 (£27,000) donation from Exxon, the US oil giant. If your readers had been made aware of this, they might have read the article somewhat differently.”

On a related subject, check out this book about how science, the media and public opinion is manipulated by industry. The page is on the PRWatch website, an organisation dedicated to monitoring the PR industry, and a site well worth exploring.

Keyword: Online Journalism. Cautionary – but quite amusing – tale of how two rappers from Scunthorpe duped the Sun and femail.co.uk into running a piece saying they’d been signed to Eminem’s record label. All they had to do was create a fake website.

Keyword: Design. The New York Times reports on how a wave of design-oriented blogs are influencing the design world – and gives a good selection of examples.

Keyword: Blogs. Academics increasingly using blogs for teaching, says the BBC. Tell us something we don’t know.

Keyword: Online Journalism. The BBC reports accusations from Iran that the US government ordered an American internet service provider to stop hosting the website of an official Iranian news agency, The Iranian Student News Agency (the site’s in non-roman characters, presumably Arabic, so will take some time to display on Western browsers).

Keyword: Technology. Rumours abound that Google are planning to launch a VoIP (Internet telephony) service. Here’s the post that led me to those rumours, with some interesting comments.

On a related subject, the company has also confirmed that it is introducing a TV search facility that allows user to search the text of the show. There are plans to eventually include internet-based video in the search too.

Is that all? No. Here CNET report on Google hiring the lead programmer of Firefox, fueling speculation that the company intend to launch a web browser.

Expect to hear future rumours such as ‘CNET hire cleaner – gcleaner.com address already registered’…

Two great articles from Chris Sherman – the first is a good overview of reference websites, the second his New Year’s search resolutions, including stopping using the Google toolbar (and instead using Firefox’s excellent search plugins) and seeking multiple ‘opinions’ (search results). With the latter point he points out two great sites: Thumbshots’s ranking tool allows you to compare sites’ ranking across search engines (more about this here), and Jux2 runs a search simultaneously on three engines, showing common results.

PS: For a good overview of more specialised search engines, see this page.