Tag Archives: social media

It’s the Sun wot won it at Fark

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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.

Sun winning at Fark, Guardian second

Sun winning at Fark, Guardian second

Experiences in social media from the Birmingham Post’s Jo Geary

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Insightful presentation from Development Editor Jo Geary on some of the lessons she’s learned while building the Birmingham Post’s presence in social media. You can also find it on her blog here.

Guardian tops Reddit submissions list

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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.

Submissions to Reddit: Guardian wins

Submissions to Reddit: Guardian wins

Telegraph.co.uk top of Digg league

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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).

Newspaper site Diggs

Newspaper site Diggs

Online journalism lesson 1: Using RSS and social media for newsgathering

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This year I’m aiming to blog all of my course materials for online journalism. Yesterday was the first class, so below is the PowerPoint for what I call Passive-Aggressive Newsgathering: using RSS and social media for newsgathering.

Note: the Online Journalism module is aimed at second year undergraduates on the degree in journalism I teach on.

3 wishes for social media in 2009

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This was published as a guest post on Shane Richmond’s Daily Telegraph Technology blog:

Media organisations are still barely getting their heads around social media. They look at a conversation and see ‘vox pops’; they look at a community and see a market. They ask for ‘Your pictures’ and then complain when they get 1000 images of a mild snowfall.

They ghettoise viewers into 60 second slots at the end of the news bulletin, or ‘Have Your Say’ sections on the website. They can see the use of blogs and Twitter when they can’t access a disaster area and are desperate for news, but the rest of the time complain that they’re ‘only for geeks’ or ‘full of rumour’. And they advertise, when they should socialise. Continue reading →

Is networked journalism more passive?

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Last week I spoke at the BBC College of Journalism’s Future of Journalism conference about the future newsroom, and the News Diamond specifically. Chair Louise Minchin asked the following question: did these new production processes mean journalists would become more passive?

It is a great question. On the surface that’s what would appear to be happening: in posting alerts and blog drafts you are inviting the input of the audience and therefore being more reactive. Continue reading →

When retailers and consumers move into social media, news should surely follow

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Stat of the day comes from Cone (I’m sure there’s a fascinating reason for that name):

Sixty percent of Americans use social media, and of those, 59 percent interact with companies on social media Web sites. One in four interacts more than once per week.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, 93 percent of social media users “believe a company should have a presence in social media”. “56 percent of users feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment.”

But it’s MediaPost’s Research Brief that complements this with something more interesting for me:

Data from an August 2008 survey of Web merchants, sponsored by Internet Retailer, found that, of the 39.3% of retail respondents that use social networks, 32% have a page on Facebook, 27% on MySpace and 26% on YouTube.

So a significant proportion of retailers are moving into social media, consumers want more, and the trend continues.

Now, what should news organisations be doing again?

They’re not “geeks” – they’re early adopters

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Last week I was at a magazine publishers talking about social media platforms, when it was put to me that the platform I was talking about was “mainly used by Valley types”, and why should journalists invest time in a platform when the majority of readers of more conservative titles don’t use it?

It’s a recurring question – so much so that I have decided to present my answer here. I’d welcome any additions. Continue reading →

More about that social-media-for-news training next week

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Being the sort of person who puts all their work online, I thought it might be useful to put the agenda for next week’s one-day training course up, along with useful hyperlinks. As always, contributions welcomed. Here’s what I’ll be covering: Continue reading →