Danny Sanchez on digital media
Amy Webb over at mydigimedia has discovered the set of cheat sheets to put all other cheat sheets to shame.
From HTML character entities, Photoshop keyboard shortcuts and a CSS shorthand guide, you’re going to find everything your designer/geek heart requires to get through the day more productively.
Various news outlets report today that Nielsen/NetRatings will begin using time spent on a Web site in lieu of the much-maligned page view as its primary metric to determine a site’s success. This move that has been expected for some time now due to the growing use of Web 2.0 technologies.
According to an excellent Computerworld report:
“It is not that page views are irrelevant now, but they are a less accurate gauge of total site traffic and engagement,” [Scott Ross, director of product marketing at Nielsen/NetRatings] said. “Total minutes is the most accurate gauge to compare between two sites. If [Web] 1.0 is full-page refreshes for content, Web 2.0 is, ‘How do I minimize page views and deliver content more seamlessly?’ ”
This means a few things for news sites:
1) An emphasis on user friendliness and engagement will trump site designs that are designed specifically to increase page view numbers (photo galleries that load new pages for each image, multi-page stories, multi-page photo narratives). Which leads us directly to…
2) Drink some of that Ajax-y Kool-Aid (that does sounds rather toxic, doesn’t it?). Ajax, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is often loathed by the money people for not bringing in page views since it wonderfully loads content without reloading pages (see Netvibes, the new Yahoo! Mail, Flickr, Google Maps, to name just a few) .
3) Video and engaging interactive features are going to be an even more important component of a site’s success. Big Flash features are notorious for not necessarily getting big page view numbers for the large amounts of staff time to produce them. Perhaps now, they’ll be more worth it — if they’re good.
4) Greater attention needs to be paid to the quality of the content. Getting a reader to go to the end of a long story *may* be more valuable than trying to get them to read lots of three-paragraph stories.
5) Get users talking to each other on your site. Before, a user posting to a message board was just one or two page views. Now, you’ll be able to benefit from the entire time that user is composing and editing his message.
And surely there is much more. I’d love to hear your two cents in the comments.
Great job opportunity here in Orlando for a Flashionista:
The Orlando Sentinel is seeking a senior artist to report and illustrate information graphics for print and online. Our recent newsroom restructuring is complete, and we’re looking for a seasoned visual leader to shape the world ahead.
Candidates must be fluent in Adobe’s Creative Suite and have at least an intermediate knowledge of Flash. ArcView or 3D animation skills are plus.
This is a leadership position, so candidates should be comfortable interfacing with top editors on a daily basis. Senior artists are responsible for defining the high-end of the department’s capabilities and taking the lead on long-term projects. They also run the department in the absence of its manager, Todd Stewart. Learn how to be a Master Public Speaking.
A good resume details your skills and training, work experience, and education, and, most importantly, the accomplishments you have made with past employers. It should also inform the employer of your career objective (the job you are seeking) and communicate in a concise manner the benefits you will bring to the job if hired. You can build very effective resume with the help of online resume maker.
The Sentinel‘s visual journalists work in a collaborative, collegial environment, and our top editors encourage imagination by applauding innovation. See what we’ve been doing lately at:
http://snipr.com/1njka
and http://www.orlandosentinel.com/broadband/
Want to hear more? Send your resume and examples of your best explanatory thinking to:
Bonita Burton, AME/Visuals
Orlando Sentinel
633 N. Orange Ave.
Orlando, FL 32801-2833
Or drop me an email: bburtonATorlandosentinel.com
Oh, the consternation Microsoft has caused us web designers by not allowing us to run multiple versions of Internet Explorer. I’ve been checking around for some time now, and it appears the only way to run IE6 and IE7 at the same time is to muck around with your registry. Not necessarily great for your system’s stability, especially if you accidentally zap the wrong registry file.
So along comes IE NetRenderer to save the day. Although a bit slow to load (perhaps because of all the Lifehacker traffic?), NetRenderer will call up a URL and show you an image of what the page looks like in your choice of Internet Explorers 5.5, 6 and 7. While it won’t show you the behavior of dynamic items, it’s still a great tool to have.
Visit the tutorials section for more tools and useful stuff.
[Via Lifehacker]
That mysterious big project I had to take a break for: Well, here it is! OrlandoSentinel.com has relaunched with a new design.
Here is AME Online Anthony Moor’s letter about the redesign (and congrats to Anthony on his move to the Dallas Morning News.) Here is a full-size screenshot of what the old site looked like.
Also, stop by the Your Neighborhoods pages, which also have a new look. If you have any feedback about the neighborhoods or the site in general, feel to drop it in the comments or e-mail me and Richard Tribou at dsanchezATorlandosentinel.com and rtribouATorlandosentinel.com.
And now, back to your irregularly scheduled blog.
The New York Observer underwent a redesign using Drupal as its content-management system. The project leaders have posted an article on Drupal.org about how they redesigned the site, shoveled over 22,000 old articles and overcame the challenges they faced while doing it.
They also include details on how they built the interesting variation of a tag cloud, which uses illustrations of subjects’ faces instead of text (XML file here).
[Via Steve Yelvington]
[Photo by VJL]
Mindy McAdams tells the tale of a student who recently came in wanting to become an independent video journalist. The problem: She doesn’t know a lick of HTML.
See her advice to the student.
Some like to take the tack of sitting down with a book and going chapter-by-chapter. Well, feguddaboutit. If you want to learn HTML/CSS, Flash, databases or any other technology, you have to set a project goal for yourself:
-I want to shoot a video about a local character and upload it to a blog.
-I want to start a blog about college baseball.
-I want to make a Google Maps mashup of local Indian restaurants by hand.
-I want to display the results of a database of politicians on the Web.
-I want to make a Soundslide about the local dog park.
Take that goal, and then use that book selectively to find the skills you need to accomplish what you want to do. If not, it’s like trying to memorize the user manual of a video camera instead of just running around filming interesting stuff.
If you try to swallow that whole book in one shot, there’s a good chance you’ll kill your enthusiasm and never learn.
Bryan Murley over at Innovation in College Media has a great checklist of online-related tasks that college publications should be doing. But the list is also a good guide of tasks for those who want to get started in online media.
Every web editor and producer should at least be familiar with how each of these tasks are accomplished. The act of learning how to produce a Soundslide or contribute effectively to a blog will make you that much more useful in producing a great site.
See more of Bryan’s work at Innovation in College Media.
Typetester is a wonderful little online tool that lets you quickly compare just about every aspect of type that can be altered using CSS.
The tool lets you compare font, leading, size, word spacing, weight, text decoration and much more.
Also, it’s a great refresher for CSS text attributes, and Typetester conveniently highlights the fonts which are considered Web browser safe. Silly me had forgotten all about little ol’ Trebuchet MS (though feel free to forget about Comic Sans any time).
Enjoy!
Also, check out the tutorials category for more tools useful for online journalism types.
[Via Lifehacker]
Traffic at Gannett’s redesigned USAToday site has spiked by 21%, according to data from Nielsen and this report from Editor & Publisher.
From the article:
USA Today said the number of registrations jumped 380% over February, and that readers are spending more time per visit. Nearly 40,000 user comments were posted in March, the paper said.
Check out the Editors Weblog for more background on the March relaunch, which included an emphasis on the OnDeadline Blog and a community journalism initiative.
More details emerge about the Poynter Institute’s much-heralded Eyetrack 2007 study after a week-long seminar in St. Petersburg, Fla.
From the article:
“It turns out [readers] will stay even longer when reading online. The editors were also pleased to hear that the extra work of providing lively, illustrated teasers or telling stories in a graphic package pays off by attracting extra reader attention.
On the other hand, the finding that the 600 readers tested in the study regularly read jumps was unexpected.”
Make sure to browse through Poynter’s other content, including a series of audiocasts, as well as a history of the study and a video about this year’s study.
The study found the following results based on the preliminary release:
1) The largest percentage of story text read was higher online (77%) than in broadsheet (62%) or tabloid (57%) formats.
2) Print readers are more methodical, while online readers scan more by a margin of about 25%.
3) Sidebars, lists and QandAs boost reader understanding.
4) Online readers are drawn to navigational elements and teasers. Print readers are drawn to large headlines and photos.
5) Documentary-style photos get lots of attention. Staged photos, not so much.
More at Poynter’s ‘The Myth of Short Attention Spans.’
The 2007 Webby Awards nominees have been announced. Here are the nominees some of the categories related to news organizations. From the list:
For Best Copy/Writing:
| HowStuffWorks http://www.howstuffworks.com |
HowStuffWorks |
| Newyorker.com http://www.newyorker.com/ |
New Yorker Magazine |
| Salon.com http://www.salon.com |
Salon Media Group, Inc. |
| Slate Magazine http://www.slate.com |
Slate Magazine |
| The New York Times – These Times Demand The Times http://thesetimesdemandthetimes.com |
The New York Times |
Blog – Business
| Bannerblog http://www.bannerblog.com.au |
Soap Creative |
| DealBook http://www.nytimes.com/dealbook |
NYTimes.com |
| paidContent.org: The Economics Of Content http://www.paidcontent.org |
ContentNext Media Inc. |
| Techdirt http://www.techdirt.com/ |
Techdirt, Inc. |
| UX Magazine http://www.uxmag.com |
Curio Partners Inc. |
Blog – Cultural/Personal
| Design Observer http://www.designobserver.com |
Design Observer |
| Girl Solo In Arabia http://www.girlsoloinarabia.com |
McEye Media Inc |
| My Moleskine http://www.mymoleskine.net |
Private |
| TreeHugger.com http://www.treehugger.com |
TreeHugger.com |
| we make money not art http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com |
we make money not art |
Blog – Political
| Comment is Free http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk |
Guardian Unlimited |
| MotherJones.com http://www.motherjones.com |
Mother Jones |
| Salon.com http://www.salon.com |
Salon Media Group, Inc. |
| The Caucus: Political Blogging from The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/caucus |
NYTimes.com |
| Truthdig http://www.truthdig.com/ |
Truthdig |
Magazine
| MediaStorm http://mediastorm.org |
MediaStorm |
| Nerve.com http://www.nerve.com |
Nerve Media |
| Salon.com http://www.salon.com |
Salon Media Group, Inc. |
| Worldchanging http://www.worldchanging.com |
Worldchanging |
| Zink magazine http://www.zinkmag.com |
PUSH |
News
| BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news |
BBC News |
| NPR.org http://www.npr.org/awards/2006/we… |
NPR |
| Reuters.com http://www.reuters.com |
Reuters |
| Salon.com http://www.salon.com |
Salon Media Group, Inc. |
| Truthdig http://www.truthdig.com/ |
Truthdig |
Newspaper
| guardian unlimited http://www.guardian.co.uk |
Guardian Unlimited |
| NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/ |
NYTimes.com |
| The Hollywood Reporter http://www.hollywoodreporter.com |
Big Spaceship |
| The Wall Street Journal Online http://www.wsj.com |
Dow Jones Online |
| Variety.com http://www.variety.com |
Variety |
Podcasts
| guardian unlimited Podcasts http://www.guardian.co.uk/podcasts |
Guardian Unlimited |
| NPR Podcasts http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/po… |
NPR |
| Scientific American.com http://www.sciam.com |
Scientific American |
| Spout http://www.spout.com |
BBK Studio |
| The Onion http://www.theonion.com/content/s… |
The Onion |
Radio
| BBC Radio 1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1 |
BBC |
| CBC Radio 3 http://radio3.cbc.ca/ |
CBC |
| iCat fm http://www.icatfm.com |
CCRTV Interactiva |
| NPR.org http://www.npr.org/ |
NPR |
| Virgin Radio http://www.virginradio.co.uk/?pid… |
Virgin Radio |
[Via Journerdism]
