paidContent:UK: World Newspaper Congress: Mirror’s Kelly: We Must Put Search Engines In Their Place
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Matt Kelly: "Not recommendations from a search engine, but from a friend. That’s how to grow a meaningful audience."
Category Archives: Trinity Mirror
Roy Greenslade: Mirror man calls for end to ‘unique users’ metric
Matt Kelly: "Until we bite the bullet and forget about this mad race for users, and focus instead on building engaged, loyal audiences, we will continue to see the value of our content erode online."
Birmingham Post: Why the Birmingham Post must change
Marc Reeves: "I believe the weekly model is the best option for the Post. There's a lot of emotion connected to the supposed status of being a daily paper and many of my contacts in the city regularly state baldly to me that 'Birmingham simply must have a daily business paper'. But at what cost? Increasingly, our diet of daily and immediate news is fed by online services and broadcast media, and newspapers have a much reduced role in bringing news we didn't hear first somewhere else. Papers are increasingly more about providing analysis, comment and insight. I believe that should be the role of the Post in print - to explain and examine the big decisions and issues in the region, while keeping readers up to date with the immediate through our website and other online services."
paidContent:UK: WTF? Mirror’s New 3am.co.uk Is Ballsy And Bitchy In Spades
Comment from Matt Kelly: "By choosing the 'odd' navigation we did, by writing funny headlines that might not perform well in google, by blatantly disregarding the ABC of good SEO, we are positively eschewing the opportunity for multi-milllions of casual users, in favour of a smaller band of regular, engaged, users." Hmm.
FT.com: Rivals sceptical of Murdoch’s charging plan
Sly Bailey: “I don’t think this is about what Rupert Murdoch wants. It’s about what the consumer is prepared to pay for. And why would you pay when you can get the same thing somewhere else for free?"
Telegraph Blogs: Murdoch’s paywall is a gift to the competition
Shane Richmond: "This is a great opportunity for the Mirror, The Daily Star and, I suppose, producers of pictures of topless women, to hoover up those Sun readers who aren’t sure whether they want to pay."
paidContent:UK: Trinity’s Bailey Still Fighting Google, ‘Unique Users Don’t Pay Wages’
Sly Bailey: "Move away from the general, commoditised packages of news and concentrate on our areas of content where we have unique and intrinsic value. It means rejecting the relentless quest for a gazillion unique users, focusing instead on delivering loyal valuable readers ... Let me tell you, unique users don’t pay the wages.”
MediaGuardian.co.uk: Big newspaper websites ‘erode value of news’, says Sly Bailey
Trinity Mirror chief exec Sly Bailey: "By creating gargantuan national newspaper websites designed to harness users by the tens of millions, by performing well on search engines like Google, we have eroded the value of news ... News has become ubiquitous. Completely commoditised. Without value to anyone. Other than us as publishers, because we pay for it."
NMA: The Mail, Mirror and Future to keep online content free
"Mail Online, Trinity Mirror and Future Publishing have said they will remain subscription-free, despite news that The Independent and Times Online may charge for content."
Currybetdotnet: Press silence on Alfie Patten DNA test result broken by Google News
"Yesterday, The Mirror was reporting a further development in the story of the 13 year old boy named as a father. ... The Mirror has pulled the story from their site. It is an interesting test case of whether legal deletions should also cover SEO-orientated keyword stuffed URLs. They might have pulled the story, but I can still read the headline on the resulting 404 page."
Media Notes: Hyperlocal: the future of regional journalism?
Teeside Evening Gazette editor Darren Thwaites tells journalism students journalists need to raise their game in the digital age: “If we are just copying and pasting council reports then maybe we don’t deserve to exist”
paidContent: Trinity Mirror’s GazetteLive Recruits Schoolkids As Hyper-Local Bloggers
"[T]he Trinity Mirror-owned Teesside Gazette is recruiting 70 school students as bloggers for its post-code level network of news channels on GazetteLive.co.uk as part of a new vocational course. Trinity has linked-up with Stockton Schools to help create a new Creative & Media diploma to launch in September for students aged 14 to 19, and plans are “in place” to extend the scheme beyond Stockton. It’s not a work experience lark for the kids; neither is it cheap labour for Trinity: the new diploma will be equivalent to between five and seven GCSEs or three and a half A-levels if they take the advanced version."
PaidContentUK: Online Or Bust: Why 2009 May Be The Nail In Newspapers’ Coffins
Patrick Smith: "2009 will mark a shift from seasonal, sensible belt-tightening to the long-term shrinking of the newspaper industry in Britain. Here’s why"
Press Gazette: Press Gazette’s guide to content management systems
"Today, the interface between reporters, sub-editors, websites, news pages and mobile devices is so important that even in the current hellish downturn it is one of the few things that journalism organisations are spending serious money on."