It's nearly three years since we led the way with the use of liveblogging across Trinity Mirror Regionals titles.
One of the most popular regular live events continues to be the chance to quiz our football writers.
We know they are popular - but I wanted to flag up this week's Newcastle United chat with the Evening Chronicle's Lee Ryder as a best in class for several reasons.
First off, the Chronicle do it at the same time every week - on a Monday lunchtime. They will also liveblogs at different times of the week for big one-off events, such as the sale of a player. The fixed time has resulted in more and more people logging on each week.
Secondly, though, Helen Dalby, head of web in the North East, clearly has in mind the large number of readers who watch the liveblog via the 'replay' button. Faced with a deluge of questions, the obvious thing can be to publish them all and let the writer choose which ones to answer. While this appeases the fans who are on live, it can make for a difficult viewing experience when watching the replay - and the number of replays can be bigger than those watching live.
Finally, Helen and Lee deal with the live readers by making it clear that one question at a time will be posted, and then updates the article the liveblog is embedded in to thank everyone for posting questions and explaining why not all the questions were answered. Even the most fanatical fan will know one man can't answer questions from 1,500 people in one go.
Here's proof that it's always worth asking for video, even when it seems remarkably unlikely.
The Manchester Evening News recently ran a story about a woman who bought a large batch of eggs, only to crack 29 double yolkers in a row.
The question about video was asked. The answer was yes. The video went onto the MEN's YouTube account (it's yet to get Kyte), and the result is 333,157 streams - making it the second most popular video on the MEN site ever.
Proof, if it were needed, that you never know what will go viral.
Both titles ran a number of multimedia packages around the event, which concluded with a light and sound spectacular outside the Liver Building.
The one part I wanted to flag up which could work elsewhere very well is the ECHO's use of Flickr for the event.
The Echo opened a comment thread within its group on Flickr to ask people to suggest pictures from the event which they had taken - or others they had seen on Flickr. There were more than 200 submissions, some of which were used in print, and many of which appeared in a gallery on the site.
Using pictures in print from Flickr is nothing new, but the clever use of the images in a gallery to add extra content - viewed more than 2,000 times so far - is.
It's one of a number of clever ideas the Echo is deploying around its Flickr group. Others include nominations for a 2012 Flickr calendar.
I had to put together some quick stats on the riots coverage across regionals. Here's a few highlights on some incredible web traffic. There's also a Newspaper Society article on how different regional and local paper websites fared.
Continue reading Riots: Some incredible web stats from the last few days.
As England, and the world, watched on in horror at the scenes which started in Tottenham on Saturday night I've been tracking what videos have been most watched on the Trinity Mirror Regionals about the rioting.
Our teams across the regions provided phenomenal coverage of the disorder in their areas - and we've seen incredible traffic figures as a result showing just how important the local and regional media are. While the national media may have been all over the disturbances in the capital from Liverpool to Huddersfield it has been the regional media keeping up with what's been happening.
Continue reading Riots: Best performing videos, riot maps and round-ups.
Here's what have been the most watched videos on the Trinity Mirror Regionals network this month:
1. WalesOnline: Brynglas tunnel fire
A great example of user-generated content, as this video showed the scale of the fire which took place last week at the Brynglas tunnel on the M4 causing traffic chaos. There's more about the power of user-generated content here.
Continue reading Viewfinder: Top 5 Trinity Mirror Regional videos for July 2011.
One of the many things the BBC website is very good at is putting out breaking news - and then calling for witnesses.
Take this example from an explosion in Boston, Lincolnshire, today:
Take this example from an explosion in Boston, Lincolnshire, today:
What's particularly interesting about this is the call out for information and witnesses. We know from experience people log on when they've seen or heard something - but do we do enough to get them talking?
Andy Murrill, editor of the Reading Post, says they regularly get people posting information in comments on stories which takes the story forward. For sites without comment facilities (and even those with if you want to keep the comments secret), putting a call-out box similar to the one above into a story, is very effective.
It can be done with the a form created in Google Docs, which then sends all comments to spreadsheet which can be monitored by many people at once.
Andy Murrill, editor of the Reading Post, says they regularly get people posting information in comments on stories which takes the story forward. For sites without comment facilities (and even those with if you want to keep the comments secret), putting a call-out box similar to the one above into a story, is very effective.
It can be done with the a form created in Google Docs, which then sends all comments to spreadsheet which can be monitored by many people at once.
During social media training this year we have demonstrated the benefits of Google's Realtime search - which searches social networks.
Google has withdrawn this service for now - so I've compiled a list of 10 social network search engines which journalists should be familiar with.
You can download the guide at the link below:
searchenginesforjournos.pdf
Google has withdrawn this service for now - so I've compiled a list of 10 social network search engines which journalists should be familiar with.
You can download the guide at the link below:
searchenginesforjournos.pdf
It looks like just another letters page - but it's proof of the power of Facebook if you want to connect to readers.
Last Monday, the Birmingham Mail ran an article about a pledge to spend £25million on improvements to Birmingham's bus network.
The web team linked to the story on the Mail's Facebook page, asking the 1,600 followers they have on the social network site how they would like to see the £25million spent.
The response was quick - 19 comments within a couple of hours, the vast majority of which were very considered.
The Mail used them on the letters page on Thursday.
The advantage Facebook has over Twitter, our commenting system and forums when it comes to reverse-publishing comments into print is that most people use their real name on Facebook.
Even on locked-down profiles, you can generally click on the person's name and find out where they are from - enabling us to carry the name and location of a person who submits a comment.
utils(3)m.pdf < < < Click on this link to download the page
Last Monday, the Birmingham Mail ran an article about a pledge to spend £25million on improvements to Birmingham's bus network.
The web team linked to the story on the Mail's Facebook page, asking the 1,600 followers they have on the social network site how they would like to see the £25million spent.
The response was quick - 19 comments within a couple of hours, the vast majority of which were very considered.
The Mail used them on the letters page on Thursday.
The advantage Facebook has over Twitter, our commenting system and forums when it comes to reverse-publishing comments into print is that most people use their real name on Facebook.
Even on locked-down profiles, you can generally click on the person's name and find out where they are from - enabling us to carry the name and location of a person who submits a comment.
utils(3)m.pdf < < < Click on this link to download the page
Twitter has released its own guide for journalists using the social media service.
It can be found here: http://media.twitter.com/newsrooms
For journalists already familiar with and using Twitter, there's probably not much new here - but for those still to be convinced, this could be a good way of bringing them on board.
