We posted just last week about ‘local’ being the new ‘social’ for news publishers and it seems the guardian.co.uk (perhaps even taking editorial inspiration from the Moreover Blog!?) agrees.
The Digital Content Blog has posted a nice write-up of just a handful of the developments over in the States where many online news outlets are already trying to take advantage of this new ‘hyperlocal‘ buzz. AOL and some former eBay execs are both taking interesting steps in this direction, with AOL looking to expand it’s recently acquired Patch network and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar bidding to kick-start his local news service Peer News. Not forgetting that we have blogged in the past about YouTube’s efforts in this area and with foursquare regularly being touted as the ‘next Twitter’ is hyperlocal getting you excited?
Here is an interesting piece from Mashable on the convergence of social media and local news. Publishers seem especially keen on exploring more and more local content, with social media seemingly a great compliment to this trend.
As people access this specific hyperlocal content, and engage in it at the same time, then I’m sure both publishers and users will see the benefits.
Twitter Lists have been generating plenty of buzz this past week since their launch at the end of October, and it’s fascinating to watch the many ways they are being used in such a short space of time.
Mashable have published a piece on how news outfits are really running with this new feature, such as creating staff lists and gathering registers on favoured Twitterers. The New York Times staff list, already including 96 staffers, looks like a great resource for finding insightful tweets plus shows the NYT understands the boundaries between traditional news and social media are increasingly blurred.
In the UK The Guardian has created a handy list of Members of Parliament, so if you want to quiz your local MP on their expenses the Guardian’s list could be a good place to find them! Similarly CNN has curated a list featuring politicians involved in November 3 elections.
Any other particularly noteworthy news lists out there? The value seems to lie in creating filtered, specific lists that can that provide relevant information without all the noise and for the publisher there is always the potential to drive more traffic to their site.
CNN.com, one of the most popular websites in the U.S., has unveiled a rather radical and exciting new layout.
The new design makes the most of CNN’s strong branding, and it’s great to see user-generated content in the form of iReport being given the opportunity to shine.
So what do you think? Is it an improvement on before or is there still further to go before mainstream news sites really take advantage of their communities?
We touched upon it last month with a blog post about plans from the BBC to revamp its news website. Today’s MediaGuardian has an update on that story with more information on Auntie’s intent for the new-look site.
Antony Rose, controller of Vision and Online at the BBC, has hinted that social media will have a role to play in the future of the BBC’s websites and they are keen to research “what the next generation in social media will be”.
The links between news and social media are certainly intriguing, this move by the BBC could be quite innovative in this particular space. As a leading of both news and social media monitoring solutions we’ll be keen to see how this move from the BBC develops and look forward to further diversification from the Beeb.
Last week’s BBC Open Day saw the Beeb reaffirm its commitment to the link economy and, in the process, keep driving traffic to many of the publicly funded corporation’s fiercest critics. The clickthrough numbers look pretty impressive, rising from 10 million per week in February to 12 million today – in part powered by the BBC’s partnership with Moreover, and these stats should only increase as Auntie pushes more outbound linking.
Also on the agenda was the BBC’s plans to refresh its BBC News website ahead of an expected UK General Election next spring, this “spring clean” looking to improve layout and navigation rather than introducing any new editorial content. The BBC Sport website can also expect a similar makeover as the corporation readies itself for next year’s World Cup and intends to maximise the newly acquired Football League online rights.
Chris Ahearn, Media President at Thomson Reuters, has spoken up in favour of the “link economy”. You may have noticed the recent ripple within the blogosphere over the issues surrounding linking and the World Wide Web, so it is certainly refreshing to hear a major publisher speak up with an understanding of how linking can be beneficial to all the parties involved.
So with that, I’ll direct to the original piece by Chris here, and recommend you follow his further musings on the matter via Twitter @cjahearn (not forgetting if you want the very latest from us at Moreover be sure to follow @moreovertech).
With the speculation surrounding print media continuing, it seems AOL is ready to take pity on out of work journalists and position themselves as a powerful new media player in the process. Having more than doubled the number of journalists at the company in the past year, with more to come, AOL’s content expansion will be interesting to watch.
Led by Engadget, another seven AOL blogs currently make the Moreover 100, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see that number increase as AOL divorces itself from Time Warner and sets off in this new direction.
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