links for 2007-02-09

Roy Greenslade just lurves the Mirror’s new site: “This has to be the most embarrassing content any British newspaper site has ever featured. It consists of bought-in material from the US and it’s, like, totally appalling.”

A review of Alasdair Roberts’ book about Freedom of Information.

The Tories want the Treasury to create a public web site of government spending by extending the proactive publication element of the FOIA.

“[US] Newspaper online readership soared in Q4 up 6.9% to 57.6 million monthly unique visitors — a record increase since the Newspaper Association of America started tracking the data in January 2004.”

Editor Charlotte Hall: “We felt we had an exclusive story, an important story, a national story and we needed to break it on the Web.”

David Hencke: “MPs are at loggerheads over the future direction of freedom of information laws, with some seeking to exempt parliament from the regulations and others trying to prevent the government from curbing the scope of the legislation.”

Martin Rosenbaum: “Since [Constitutaional Affairs minister Vera] Baird took time out to have a swipe at the BBC, I feel I ought to respond. … [T]he cost estimates given for the BBC’s use of FOI are grossly exaggerated and methodologically flawed.”

“Nice try, but again it’s ‘smart idea meets mundane execution’ time.”

Information technology has led to a glub of information, and-causes an attention deficit for the reader or viewer, according to a French academic. “In effect, there is more technology and distribution channels, but less actual information production.”

Arthur Sulzberger says he “doesn’t care” whether the New York Times will still be printed on paper in five years’ time.

This new blog is like “F*cked Company” for magazines. Not nice, as I know from personal experience. But funny.

CJR on The Sun’s story about the friendly-fire pilots: “The scoop is the video itself, which shows the back and forth between the pilots and their observers on the ground, which had not previously been released.”

David Cohn agrees with Derek Willis: the web is the natural canvas for computer-assisted reporting projects.

Political blogger Unity wonders what David Maclean, sponsor of the FOI (Amendment) Bill has to hide. Not much, it seems.

“Yahoo!’s new Pipes service is a milestone in the history of the internet. It’s a service that generalizes the idea of the mashup, providing a drag and drop editor that allows you to connect internet data sources, process them, and redirect the output.”

Alexandra Berzon: “Several top papers have recently engaged in a minor spat over which is the top trafficked “quality” newspaper Web site in the country.”

“Figures revealed under the Freedom of Information Act, show Green Bus, a company that existed for only 18 months, received £881,979 in subsidy.”

Roo boss Rob Petty on the Mirror.co.uk relaunch: “It’s just a start. If you look back to the Sun when it first launched video it was very similar but over three of four months it started to develop a personality and the content became more specific.