Bas Timmers on the problems with updating on the web.
Imagine this: you read an exclusive breaking news article on a website that says Gordon Brown is about to resign voluntarily. An hour later you come back to that same site, same article, but it now tells you David Miliband is about to step down after an argument with Brown. What to believe now? Continue reading
Guest Blogger Bas Timmers is Newsroom Editor at Dutch broadsheet de Volkskrant.
‘A newspaper is like an oil tanker,’ editors in chief call out in despair again and again. Changing the direction is often slow and difficult. But that of course just depends on whether you have the right rudder or not. Because the captain is still steering the ship. Yes, journalists can be quite nasty and stubborn, but mutiny is still a step too far for most of them. Continue reading
Bas Timmers is Newsroom Editor at Dutch broadsheet de Volkskrant. This post is also available at http://www.bastimmers.nl/diginewsuk.php
“In the virtual world a year only lasts three months,” a manager once sighed. The innovations keep on coming very quickly indeed on the web, and a success story can turn into a tale of shattered dreams within months. Kazaa and ICQ were once extremely popular, for instance, but are now only marginal players on the web.
This high speed of innovation doesn’t mean that you cannot draw any lessons from the past. For example, Pablo J. Boczkowski was examining three online projects at American newspapers already in 1999 and 2000, but the conlusions he drew are still applicable. Continue reading
Bas Timmers is Newsroom Editor at Dutch broadsheet de Volkskrant
It´s 2015. Newspapers don´t exist anymore. At least, not as a mass medium. Because everyone is living in his own cocoon, his own little world, assembled to his own preferences. Customizable, as the phenomenon is generally called. A television(or a computer screen or electronic paper?) displays documentaries and YouTube-like videos from internet users with the same preferences and the same lifestyle. The mp3-player pounds out songs automaticallty that fit the mood of its user, because the bloody thing can sense the mental state of of its boss. And in the meantime it also suggests some new songs that might match his preference. Continue reading
TMZ and the New York Times are the latest news organisations to dip a toe in the world of multimedia commenting.
The NYT recently posted a video ‘letter to the editor’, while the TMZ.com blog is letting readers post audio comments, with video comments in the pipeline. They join the San Francisco Chronicle, who earlier in the year started podcasting voice messages from readers. Continue reading
