The graph I created looking at the interactive features of UK business news websites has recieved a surprising amount of attention in recent weeks.
I had put it online to get some feedback, but it was picked up by Paul Bradshaw, who then wrote an article on it for Poynter Online. Then the study was replicated in Romania!
Now the World Editors’ Forum has contacted me and asked if I would let them publish it in their annual report!
Of course, I said yes but I want to wait to get my essay reviewed first before I give the final ok. Plus, I have changed the graph a bit and added another website (click on the graph to see the full-size version):
g
g
g
g
g
Being slightly on the nervous side, and having never published anything like this before, I’d appreciate anyone willing to give it a quick squiz to see if they see any glaring mistakes
I have had suggestions that I should by grouping the online tools (e.g. subscriptions, comments) by colour, but I have tried and this seems to confuse the graph. I would, if I had more time, like to regroup the categories into those that encourage “short tail” repsonses from users and those that encourage a “long tail” response. (Read more about these concepts on Paul Bradshaw’s description of the News Diamond).
Oh, and if people are more interested in the popularity of online tools amongst business news sites, this graph may be better (again, click to enlarge):
g
g
g
g
g
Joanna Geary 
You may be even more excited to know that a group of us at the OJB is about to publish a Europe-wide extension looking at France, Germany, Spain and Portugal among others…
congrats!
I’m going to complete my transition into pedantry by telling you “don’t forget to label your axes”!
@paulbradshaw Wooooooooo!!!!!!
@nikki You are indeed right. I hang my head in shame (my GCSE maths teacher would be appalled).
Hi Joanna
Great work as a framework to think with.
I couldn’t decide whether to comment here or at the original, so here it is. I’m interested in blogs vs MSM and how the two will interact/compete over the next 12 months. In that context:
* I find it interesting that you have advertising as an added interactive element in the content.
* By “synchronous chat” I’m adssuming you mean chatrooms.
* I’d be interested in a “sector” presentation – meaning adding a level of your categories aggregated into “mobile”, “social”etc.
* I’d also be interested to see the analysis applied to the new politics portal sites.
I think that everything on your list can be provided on WordPress plus a couple of plugins. Interesting.
Does that imply that the real competitive edge of news sites as opposed to blogs is the resource levels available?
By my reckoning I’m covering around a dozen of these on my site. I may blog this this week – excellent.
Rgds
Matt Wardman
Hi Joanna,
Thanks for your great work!
I’m working with Paul Bradshaw on a European adaptation of your graph, right there:
Could you email me the excel file of your data, that would make it easier to input the database.
Cheers,
nico.
Hi Joanna,
The Bivings Group started something similar in 2006 (see:http://www.bivingsreport.com/2006/a-call-for-newspaper-research/) and in my enthusiasm of the time I started tracking Belgian newspapers…
You can see the results here:http://belgianmediaweb2.wetpaint.com/page/Tracking+Table
I’ll ask my colleagues here at the PR agency to help fill in the gaps for our country and then feed this into the template of the Obervatoire…
Great work !
Joana:
Good work. Very interesting, in fact. But: what does it mean ‘Blogroll with external links’? Could you please put an example?
Thanks a lot,
Marc (Barcelona, BCN)
Great news, Joanna! And nice to hear that Paul Bradshaw and others are picking up the idea and expanding the project, which is a horse I set running with a few other UCLan students too. Will get them to post their findings soonest, too.
@Francois It would not have happened without you – after all, you pointed me in the direction of The Biving’s Group work.
@Marc My blogroll on my blog is exactly the sort of thing I mean. Many newspapers only link to things within their own site. External linking allows readers to venture into other areas of the web that have been reccommended by the news organisation.