All change at BBC online

The BBC has made some changes to its online front page.

Steve Herrmann,editor of the BBC News website explains the changes on the editor's blog.

We have increased the number of headlines under each of the section headings in the bottom half of the page, made the popular Business and Technology sections more prominent by adding pictures, and we have increased the number of featured items in the video area.Internationally, advertisements appear on the right hand side of the page alongside editorial content and this has resulted, some of the time, in that side of the page becoming much longer than the rest of it. The modified layout should allow us to balance the two sides of the page better, and provide more headlines at the same time.

The Beeb recognises SEO in its headlines

The BBC has decided to make its headlines more serach engine friendly.

Steve Herrmann explains all on the Editors Blog

our developers have done a bit of work to allow journalists the scope to create two headlines for a story if they want to - a short one which appears on the front page and our other website indexes, and a longer one which will appear on the story page itself and in search engine results.
The front page headlines will remain limited to between 31 and 33 characters and will continue to appear on Ceefax and Digital Text, as they do now, along with the top four paragraphs of each story.

Ziltch-that's the value of newspaper's digital content

So according to Steve Outer,the digital content of a newspaper is worth.....nothing.

Writing at Editor and Publisher

he says that whilst there is some value for advertisers

who will pay to get in front of the audience assembled to consume the content.

for the ordinary person

consumers paying for news stories online, or on mobile phones, via micro-payments or subscriptions? Not likely

Steve explains further on his blog

my main point is that whether online or on mobile devices, news publishers need to figure out how to offer something that’s tangible, not ephemeral. Selling fleeting digital news stories is a non-starter. The mobile platform offers some alternative opportunities.

Making people smarter whilst saving them time-the online concept

Transfering content from a magazine to online is not always as easy as one might think.

This fascinating interview with Josh Tyrangiel, Managing Editor of TIME.com, explains some of the pitfalls.

He explains that it isnt just a question of replicating the content online and ignoring the unique selling points of the web.

"We need to be cautious about the medium he says adding that "we tell our journalists that their goal is making people smarter whilst saving them time."

Time tries to differentiate itself from other news sites by recognising this time constarint on the reader and getting to the point quickly.

"We prioritise what is important and recognise where and who the reader is."

The problem in the online model is that advertising is given away

Paul Robinson takes a look at the perennial question of paid sites over at his innovation in software blog.

The problem, it seems, is a colossal error made by most newspapers in offering you all their content without asking for some money from you. Their reasoning is that this forced them into the route of monetising their websites through advertising. This has never been profitable from the day they first did it. Now, they argue, the time has come to change all this and you must pay.

The main revenue for the media is advertising he argues and for the online model,advertising is free

Phone any regional newspaper title in the country and speak to their ad sales team. The conversation will result in them offering you a rate card for the print edition. Sound sceptical about the costs and benefits. They will offer space online for free. Every time. I know, because I’ve spoken to quite a few ad sales teams in the last year.

It is the old argument about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.But again the problem comes back to the time when news organisations started putting their content online and didn't understand the web


Ht-Martin Stabe

How the printed mag is now under threat

The threat to print is coming from all sides and this morning's Independent will not allay the fears.

It is the magazine sector that is now under attack as the paper asks

Yet do we really need to carry our favourite mag around with us at all? Asda suspects not, having adopted the idea of a digital newsagent, which might be among the gravest threats to print media yet.

The system will work as follows

consumers pay a fixed monthly subscription for a magazine which is then downloaded on to their PC. Unlike a website, which has a loading front page that directs users to different links, this scheme aims to recreate digitally the shape of a magazine, with pages arranged in sequence to induce a "click and flick user interface".

The system has a number of advantages over traditional models.The most important being flexibility

Regular readers of a particular publication can choose to buy a month's subscription to their favoured title but for a generation that has grown up with the luxury of free content from a plethora of different providers, there is an opt-out from that rigidity.

Good but could do better as bbc.co.uk overspends

The BBC trust has today reported on its review of BBC.co.uk.

You can read the executive summary Here but here are the main points

1.It is an excellent service that is highly valued by users

2.Improvements to management's control of the service are needed.

3.The trustwill not approve new investments until we have considered their likely public value and approved proposals for improved management control.

The trust's main critisism is that the Beeb has simply overspent on the service.Budegted to spend £81m it ended up with a bill for £110 with the blame laid at the devolved nature of the management structure.

In terms of the service it provides the report highlights areas for improvement.

1.More needs to be done to ensure that all parts of bbc.co.uk are distinctive

2.Improvements are needed in internal search and navigation

3.Linking to external sites needs to be more effective

4. but more can be done to meet the public's growing expectation of open dialogue.

The last point is interesting.Is the trust saying the service should be more of a two way venture.If so then I applaud them.