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Archive: Guardian

Why are newspapers hiding their niche content?

16 February 2009 16:53

Categories: *, Current affairs, Internet, Media, Newspapers, Sport, Technology

You may know that I run a Formula 1 blog called vee8. It’s just one of a number of websites I am now running. It’s a lot to have on my plate and recently I have been looking at ways to save time.

Last week I asked my readers if they thought I should continue with the daily roundup of F1 links. I was bowled over by the overwhelmingly positive response. But I was still unsure about constantly using the same few sources all the time.

Websites dedicated to Formula 1 tend to be very good for day-to-day gossip and news. They have a very good feel for what is going on generally in the F1 world. But occasionally a major media company, which doesn’t necessarily churn out a great deal of F1 content, will get a big scoop. In fact, I can’t think of a quality or mid-market newspaper which doesn’t, from time to time, have interesting stories that the dedicated F1 sites have missed.

In an attempt to try and catch these stories before reading them elsewhere, but without getting overwhelmed with boring, samey or irrelevant stories, I decided to try and construct a Yahoo! Pipe. My idea was to pull in the F1 feeds from a wide variety of media websites, but filtering out stories containing words like ‘Hamilton’ or ‘Button’ so that I didn’t get overloaded with nationalistic puff-pieces.

Unfortunately, this is proving difficult. Most media websites are simply unwilling to supply me with the content I want. Honourable exceptions are guardian.co.uk (which even has a feed dedicated to Lewis Hamilton, for all your stalker needs), the Telegraph and (amazingly) the Daily Express. Other websites’ approaches towards RSS are disappointing.

Times Online doesn’t appear to have a dedicated Formula 1 or motorsport feed. It has a Sport feed. Confusingly, rugby and tennis get their own feeds. But no other sport does — not even football. The rationale behind this isn’t very clear, and having seen that two sports do have their own feeds, I feel like going on the hunt for the others. But they aren’t there. Strangely, the rugby and tennis feeds are displayed completely separately, not as a sub-category of sport.

FT.com doesn’t have any sport feeds at all. I suppose that is understandable in a sense, as the FT is due to cut back its already rather scant sports coverage. But it does mean that I will miss out on the F1 stories it does have from time to time.

The Daily Mail website lumps Formula 1 content in the ‘other sports’ section. This has its own RSS feed, but unfortunately it is shared with tennis, horse racing and, er, yet more ‘other sports’. I somehow doubt that fans of any of these sports will find this RSS feed particularly useful, unless by some fluke they are a fan of all of them.

Daily Mail RSS feeds The paper is, however, happy to cater for the niche needs of football fans. 28 separate football clubs have their own RSS feed. More creepily, the Daily Mail offers dedicated RSS feeds containing the latest news on a number of different celebrities, for the stalker in you. Quite good for stained raincoats, but not so good for anoraks like me.

These websites are surely missing a trick. It shouldn’t be a problem to provide RSS feeds for any topic, no matter how niche. WordPress certainly offers this functionality, and every category and tag has its own RSS feed. But some websites’ approaches to RSS feeds seem arbitrary at best. It seems particularly inexcusable in this increasingly long tail-aware age.

Presumably newspapers want people to read their content. But some of their websites are sticking to the old model of content delivery — chucking it all in one place and making its readers browse through everything until they come across an article they’re interested in. That was all very well when the most efficient way of disseminating news was to print it on a dead tree. But that was last the case at least ten years ago.

Now we have more efficient and cost-effective ways to get to the information we want, but newspapers seem dead set on not offering them to us. Bandwidth isn’t an excuse. guardian.co.uk not only offers RSS feeds for a huge variety of topics, it offers full RSS feeds for them. Plus, with a nifty bit of URL hacking, you can access highly specialist RSS feeds that aren’t even advertised at all.

So why are some websites still asking me to subscribe to an “other sports” feed filled with a baffling mish-mash of unrelated stories? What makes the editors of these websites think that I am going to hunt down their F1 content by spending my time trawling through their badly designed website all the time, or read through a thousand RSS items that don’t interest me?

The thing is, someone looking for niche content is probably more likely to subscribe to an RSS feed. This is specifically because they don’t want to go through the entire site’s content. Yet these websites only supply RSS feeds containing a large range of the content. For the content consumer, this doesn’t save much more time than visiting the website.

If these websites offered an RSS feed for F1, they would be guaranteed at least one reader — and then more when I link to interesting articles from vee8. As it stands, I am tearing my hair out and finding it easier not to think about these websites at all.

6 comments

Reading The Guardian in full

28 October 2008 01:27

Categories: Blogging, Internet, Media, Newspapers, Technology

I have long been an advocate of full RSS feeds for reasons outlined in this post.

I do, however, understand why most news outlets opt to keep partial feeds. News websites, unlike blogs, typically show you just the headlines and a short summary of each story on the front page — just like a partial RSS feed. Blogs, meanwhile, normally show the full post on the front page. They tend to have less content, so a full feed would be perfectly manageable.

So it is a surprise that The Guardian has announced that all of its RSS feeds will be full feeds from now on. According to the people at Google Reader, The Guardian is the first major newspaper in the world to do this, so hats off to them.

It’s great news for the end user. But I have to admit that I’m feeling quite queasy just thinking about the amount of bandwidth guardian.co.uk is going to go through from now on. It’s one thing for a little blog to publish full RSS feeds, but it’s quite another for a large media organisation to do it. It might tempt me to start subscribing to some of their blogs again though.

3 comments

Where are the Scottish media blogs?

30 August 2008 15:08

Categories: Blogging, Current affairs, Internet, Media, Newspapers, Politics, Scotland, Technology

I don’t like to dwell on Iain Dale’s poll. As Longrider pointed out in the comments, it is of no real importance anyway. However, the first of Iain Dale’s category lists — media blogs — got me thinking. Why are there so few Scottish media blogs?

As far as I can make out, the list contains two blogs based on Scottish politics run by mainstream media organisations. One is the rather good Blether with Brian from the BBC’s Brian Taylor. The other is The Herald‘s politics blog (though going by Iain Dale’s list it is only Douglas Fraser’s entries that meet with approval). I have to say that while I was very aware of Brian Taylor’s blog, I was only vaguely aware that The Herald had a political blog.

You might think that two entries in the top 30 of Iain Dale’s poll is not too bad. But when you look more closely at some of the other entries, things don’t look so good for the Scottish media. Wales has no fewer than four blogs in the list: David Cornock, Betsan Powys, Vaughan Roderick and 07:25 to Paddington.

Three of those come from the BBC Wales politics department. In Scotland, Brian Taylor is the only BBC political journalist that I know of that has a blog. Even then, I suspect that Brian Taylor was asked by BBC News Online to start his blog. Blogs by the political editors of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all started within a very short period of time of each other, as I recall.

What interests me more though is the poor showing of commercial media outlets. Wales is represented by a blog from WalesOnline. Also on Iain Dale’s list is a local blog run by David Ottewell of the Manchester Evening News.

So where are the Scottish media blogs? I don’t think I would be alone in saying that I think The Herald‘s blogs are rather limp and half-hearted. Of late, Douglas Fraser has only updated once every fortnight or so (although, yes, I know it’s the summer — but there have been a lot of Scottish political stories too). Robbie Dinwoodie is much the same.

Scotsman.com is even worse. It has no proper blogs. It does, from time to time, call articles blogs, but they have no permalinks and no comments — just a normal page with some date headings. Worse still, many opinion pieces are behind a paywall, which means that bloggers — even if they can be bothered to fork out to read it in the first place — will seldom link to them and engage in the debate.

I doubt things will improve in this area. Ever since Johnston Press took it over, they have seemed determined to treat Scotsman.com like it is the website for a tiny local newspaper. The perfectly good website was replaced with Johnston Press’s own template which is used for all of their local papers, just with content from The Scotsman shoehorned in. This kind of approach to the web, which will be an increasingly important part of The Scotsman‘s business in the future, does not bode well.

I am sure the Sunday Herald used to have a separate site for blogging and comments. I don’t think I imagined it, but I can’t find any sign of it now. Mind you, I’m not surprised — it wasn’t very good.

It needn’t be like this. Despite claims from some that bloggers and the MSM are competing, this is simply not true. Blogs and the MSM are complementing. There are plenty of excellent, high-profile blogs run by media outlets based in London. The Spectator‘s Coffee House, The Times‘s Comment Central, The Telegraph‘s suite of politics blogs, The Guardian‘s politics blog and Comment is free, Nick Robinson and many other blogs from the BBC.

And Iain Dale’s list shows that they don’t have to be based in London, with respected blogs coming from other parts of the country. Why is there not more coming from Scotland?

It has to be said that the honourable exception is Brian Taylor. He seems to enjoy blogging and it is certainly a great place to catch up with recent political shenanigans. But what about everyone else?

11 comments

On being a contrarian

14 August 2008 19:05

Categories: Blogging, Current affairs, General, Internet, Media, Newspapers, Personal, Politics, Technology

I was pleased to see that Scottish Unionist named me as his number one Scottish political blog. My increasingly sporadic and rambling posts probably do not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as, say, Ideas of Civilisation or Jeff Breslin, but I will not complain!

Better than being number 1 in Scottish Unionist’s list, though, was the testimonial he gave this blog:

Non-partisan analysis from a thought-provoking contrarian. Fantastic.

Reading that particularly pleased me because it confirmed that I am achieving pretty much everything I have come to wish to achieve by blogging. Over the years I’ve been blogging (since 2002, would you believe), I have spent some time thinking about what I want to achieve as a blogger, what makes bloggers good and what sets them apart from the mainstream media.

One of my conclusions has been that there is no point in being predictable if you are a blogger. There is no point in setting up a little platform to express yourself only to be boring when you climb onto it.

One of the biggest crimes any writer can commit is to give you what you expect. When I started to go off newspapers, it was because the op-ed pages are always full of clichés, sloppy partisanship and ideological tub-thumping. More often than not, you can read the heading, see who wrote it, then practically write the column yourself.

Simply, what is the point in reading what Polly Toynbee has to say about rich people? Because you certainly won’t learn anything. I can only think that the only people who read Polly Toynbee are those who take delight in fisking her on one side, and those who are seeking to have their own prejudices confirmed on the other.

As a blogger — i.e. someone who says to people, “look at me and listen to what I have to say” — I owe it to my readers to be interesting. There would be no point in me writing something bland and predictable — and that is one of the reasons why my posting can become quite sporadic at times. Better to say nothing at all than to say something boring, I think. If it ever got to the stage where I stopped offering anything different, I would find myself with no readers left.

That perhaps means that I am tempted to exaggerate my views and emphasise the areas where I am out of phase with the general public. Indeed I do sometimes use “artistic license”. Often I will put forward what may be seen as an unusual view, though I do so more to ask the question and raise the point rather than because I actually agree with it. However I certainly don’t lie or put my name to something that I don’t believe in.

This is an extension of my “real life” self. I often find myself, almost unwittingly, arguing against my own beliefs in the instance where I agree with the person I’m having a conversation with. There is little that worries me more than agreement. Disagreements are what makes the world go round, and it can all get a bit too cosy if I find myself agreeing too often.

This isn’t because I am a combative person, because I am not. But I am genuinely scared of groupthink. If we all agree about things and fail to challenge received wisdom, we will soon find ourselves being the victim of the scenario we failed to foresee. Either that or we will find ourselves stunted by complacency. Debating issues keeps the mind sharp, focusses attention on why we believe something and reminds us why we reject the alternative. In short, disagreement is a good thing and should be encouraged in my view!

There is also the prospect that people are jumping on the bandwagon and are agreeing for the sake of agreement. You might say that I disagree for the sake of disagreement, but I think that my approach is the safer option. Almost inevitably, the truth lies somewhere between two extremes and I think it is wise to experiment with the balance to see where it lies.

So I was delighted to be described as a non-partisan, thought-provoking contrarian. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I think, though, that most of us bloggers know all this. The blogosphere is a wonderful place to have a discussion. Our world is a normally respectful one where alternative ideas are discussed with seriousness. It can be a great platform for people who have ideas that are not well represented in the mainstream media.

That is one of the reasons for the existence of that gulf between Joe Blogs and Joe Public. We know there is no point in just regurgitating the views we see in the mainstream media. Our role is to question the mainstream media and consider the alternatives.

The blogosphere is no place for boilerplate clichés and ideological tubthumping. Boring, predictable writers are ignored in this great forum of interesting debate. So let’s see some more contrariness!

9 comments

In praise of The Inside Line podcast

11 June 2008 18:44

Categories: Opinion

I want to bring attention to a podcast that I think somehow passes under the radar of many F1 fans. I certainly did not pay much attention to it until recently. But the editions I have heard have been A-grade stuff.

The Formula One Inside Line With Maurice Hamilton and Ian Phillips

Okay, so it’s not the catchiest title, but the podcast itself is excellent. I assume it is similar to The Guardian‘s F1 podcast which was also fronted by Maurice Hamilton and Ian Phillips. For whatever reason the newspaper isn’t responsible for the podcast any more, but it lives on independently.

Maurice Hamilton and Ian Phillips are well-known voices to listeners of BBC Radio 5 Live’s coverage of Formula 1 races. I can tell you, ‘The Inside Line’ is not an exaggeration when it comes to this pair. They certainly know what’s what in the paddock.

The Canadian GP podcast contains everything I have come to expect from this podcast — an incisive review of the race’s major events, and an insider’s take on the paddock gossip. Here, the experience of Maurice Hamilton’s decades writing about F1 and Ian Phillip’s journalistic background combined with the insider knowledge attained in his role as Force India’s Director of Business Affairs comes into its own.

This podcast contains the clearest explanation of the simmering war between Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley I have heard yet. There is also an explanation that every team in the paddock and everyone else involved wants a Concorde Agreement except the FIA. And the threats of a breakaway are quite real. And Luca di Montezemolo did mean to say that Max Mosley should step down. Ian Phillips explains why very well, and I’d recommend you go and listen to the podcast for the full explanation.

Then Maurice Hamilton’s connections allows him to bring us the fact that Bernie Ecclestone and Luca di Montezemolo were spotted having lunch together in New York. It’s pretty clear now that something is happening, and the discussion in this podcast has made that more clear than anything else I have read in the past few weeks.

This isn’t the first time The Inside Line podcast has come up with the goods. Of course, this year’s Monaco Grand Prix will always be remembered for the rotten luck that Adrian Sutil encountered. Who better, therefore, than Ian Phillips to get literally the inside line on the race’s top story? And being stationed in the Force India garage meant that they got a good interview with Adrian Sutil as well.

That podcast also contained a pretty trenchant criticism of Max Mosley’s letter that was sent out in the run-up to the Monaco Grand Prix. To top it off, Ian Phillips had more information on the controversial press conference that was perceived to be rigged in Max Mosley’s favour, with Gerhard Berger reading out a prepared statement.

Clearly, the star of the show is Ian Phillips. But even when he was away, the podcast still came up with the goods. Because the person who stood in was no less a person than Mike Gascoyne, Force India’s Chief Technical Officer. He was surprisingly good in his analysis of the Turkish Grand Prix as well.

That weekend Maurice Hamilton got the credit for the “one car teams” theory that was beginning to emerge. That was because he repeated it on the Chequered Flag which is heard by more listeners. But listening to The Inside Line podcast, it’s clear that the theory actually originated with Mike Gascoyne.

If there is one problem with the Inside Line podcast is that it’s clearly recorded a bit too early for a full analysis of the race to take place. Often mechanical problems will be glossed over as it is still unclear why a driver retired. Some more time may be needed to allow the dust to settle. But there are probably time constraints as no doubt everyone involved in the podcast has other commitments to wrap up, flights to catch and so on.

However, by my reckoning there really is no better way of getting a feel of what’s really happening in the paddock than this podcast. It doesn’t have the same backing that the Chequered Flag gets from the BBC, so The Inside Line is not so well known. But it deserves to be heard by as many Formula 1 fans.

9 comments

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