A+ to The Economist Marketing Team

According to Folio magazine, The Economist is giving away free subs to bloggers it identifies as "influencers."

This way, when those bloggers write about something they see in The Economist, they "influence" readers to follow the links back to the magazine. And once there, those readers can be sniffed and marketed to...and sold subscriptions.

Think of the bloggers as the equivalent of Google's Ad Sense program (in this, "Content Sense"), effectively expanding The Economist's page count by having its content appearing on more pages out on the Internet. At no cost, as well.

And think of the readers coming to The Economist site as those who click Google Ad Sense keywords - but again, at no cost to the magazine.

Those smart Brits.

El Pais.es allows readers to send in corrections

(click to enlarge)

On the website of El Pais, the national Spanish newspaper, readers can send corrections to the newsroom for an article. I just discovered that. And I love it. Click on the photo above to have a look.

Can Citizen Journalism Help Identify the Dead in New Orleans?

I heard a report on NPR this morning about how bodies are being found, cared for, and catalogued in New Orleans, with the ultimate goal (of course) of identifying them. The admiral said they're capturing forensic and personal information for each corpse found.

The report immediately reminded me of an earlier posting about the extraoridnary work done by the Arizona Daily Star on its “Death on the Border” feature.

We've long believed that, at its core, citizen journalism is the "privatization" of public information. Those school-board minutes, who's responsible for the repair of that streetlight near the school crossing, how the zoning board voted, property records...the best micro-local coverage, now brought to you, professionaly, by outfits like Backfence and The Northwest Voice and YourHub and, yes, the Arizona Daily Star.

The success of these new voices has been based largely on their abilty to do a better job than most cash-strapped local governments at getting local information to local residents.

And now here's a chance for great journalism to give back to the community: It seems to make clear sense for FEMA and the Coast Guard to use the technology behind the Arizona Daily Star's "Death on the Border" to build a similar system for New Orleans. (This could also be a good example of what Jeff Jarvis has been calling "Recovery 2.0.")

We believe that it will greatly speed the identification process and even insurance claims. It could also help people rest more easily, if they don't find the name or identifying information about a missing friend or family member. And it harnesses the power and strength of the community in the best ways.

Smart Take on Sites and Yahoo

My friend and colleague Hart, with his usual insightful take, this time on Yahoo's move to hire Kevin Sites.

Do SoJo's go on SoJourns?

Wikipedia success confirms the needs in contextual/background information

I have fought two main battles since the beginning of my career:

1. Design is one of the tools to inform. It is a form of journalism : visual journalism. There is no place for decoration in the press.

2. Readers want background information and perspective setting. It is the role of the press. A part which it does not play... or very little.

I explained several times on this blog that I had, on several occasions during focus groups, listened to readers saying that they feel more idiotic at the end of reading their newspaper than at the beginning. Why? Because they are confronted with articles filled with concepts, events, names... that they have forgotten or that they do not know.

When we rethink or create a newspaper, we fight a lot to convince editors and the journalists on how much background information is necessary. With more or less of a success. However, newsrooms are still very far from understanding this need.

A Reuters article about the online encyclopedia Wikipedia confirms this requirement in contextual/background information. Well beyond my hopes.

According to Reuters, Wikipedia became this year the first source of reference on the Net. With twice more connections than dictionary.com.

"is fast overtaking several major news sites have the place where people swarm for context one breaking events. Traffic to the multilingual network of sites has grown 154 bore over the past year, according to research firm Hitwise. At current growth spleens, it is set to overtake The new York Times one the Web, the Drudge Report and other news sites."

As a reminder, the content of Wikipedia is created by volunteers, you and me, in a participatory and not-censured way. This, thanks to a software edition online called "wikis" and developed to allow group work. The result is astonishing. And of a surprising neutrality. More than 350 000 people have taken part in it, offering a content of more than 2 million words, in 25 languages.

In the report of Hitwise studies: the public turns to Wikipedia to find context with information, as Reuters writes :

"Wikipedia recently attracted 22.3 bore of users searching for information one" Gaza Strip, "tying the the CIA World Factbook. It has drawn five times more U.S. traffic than Google News, Yahoo News gold BBC, according to Hitwise analyst Bill Tancer. Similarly, in April, Wikipedia tied with CNN.com have the No 2 most visited site among U.S. Web users searching for details one the new Pope Benedict. Newadvent.org, has Catholic encyclopedia, was the most visited site among people seeking to learn more butt Joseph Ratzinger, according to Hitwise dated."

When newspapers are losing readers, here is a role that they could have on a daily basis : give background information to their readers. Instead of publishing pages and pages of information that you can find for free on the Internet… and much more quickly.

News Niftiness, Part 1,458

Editorsweblog reports on two new innovative news features.

One, by the Washington Post in concert with blogging search-engine Technorati, allows readers to seamlessly click through to any blogs related to a particular story. Since editors never knew, in a print world, what readers did after reading a story, this adds one more bit of data to understanding readers', well, reading habits.

And the following post notes that the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet is producing a Playstation Portable (PSP) version of their paper. Given the ergonomic design of the Playstation (easier to handle than a PDA or Crackberry, larger screen than an iPod or phone) and its popularity among younger readers, I'm wondering why a paper with a circulation under 200,000 has pulled this off while other much larger papers are still out of the game.

Reporting Blackout from New Orleans?

So now FEMA wants to ban news photographers from rescue scenes in New Orleans (tip o' the mouse to Hart's Big Picture).

The London police probably didn't want citizen journalists snapping pics of the mayhem, the injured, or the dead from the bombings, either.

So what should journalists do? Defy the ban and dive in (sorry) to the most important news story yet ongoing, despite the toxic waste and danger?

And what about citizen journalists? Is this sort of danger the dividing line between professionals paid to get the photos and facts, and citizens 'playing reporter'?