Tag: irish_examiner

Technology

Blogs increase newspaper traffic online

Reuters is reporting today that the number of people reading the blogs of newspapers in the US tripled in the last year.

The study of online habits carried out by Neilsen went on to show that:

Unique visitors to blog sites affiliated with the largest Internet newspapers rose to 3.8 million in December 2006 from 1.2 million viewers a year earlier

So having a blog on your newspaper site, greatly increases traffic to your site, it would appear. And this at a time of plummeting sales for newspapers themselves.

Noted media consultant Jeff Jarvis sounds a note of caution when he says:

Note also that the definition of blogs is up for grabs. Many times, newspapers use blogging software as a means to get up news updates and such; it is the world’s lightest, easiest, cheapest content management system and it’s a smart use. But not all these blogs link out in conversation. Still, I’ll bet this helps take the cooties off the word ‘blog’ in newsrooms.

I think Jeff is correct to point out that not all newspaper blogs allow comment but the smart ones do. Once readers realise some online publications value their opinion, they’ll be very slow to return to ones who don’t.

Hello? Anyone from the Examiner, the Irish Times, the Independent taking note?

Personal, Web 2.0

God, I'm getting old!

This is an article which was run in yesterday’s Irish Examiner (Friday June 2nd 2006) in the wake of the controversy surrounding CMP/O’Reilly’s trade marking of the term Web 2.0.

God I have aged!

The picture of me included in the article shows just how much the stress of the last couple of weeks has aged me. I can see now, as I am growing older, that I’m starting to look more and more like my father.

Hang on a sec, that is a photo of my father! It seems that, despite my supplying a photo by email for the Examiner and despite spending around 20 minutes posing for photos with one of their staff photographers (laptop on your left shoulder, ok now try on your right…), they still managed to use the wrong photo!

Ironically some of the comments during the Web 2.0 debate lamented the fact that bloggers weren’t taking the trouble to be as accurate as main stream media! Hmmm.