The Telegraph and web 2.0

The national newspaper website I chose to analyse was The Telegraph.
The Telegraph also known as the Tory graph because of its favour in supporting the Tory party, was the first national paper to launch a website. The editor of the newspaper and those working on the site claim it to be the best national newspaper website online with the most to offer their target readership. For this reason I decided to analyse the website and its use of web 2.0 to see if this was true.

Web 2.0 is all about user control, but just as importantly it is about interactivity. Web 2.0 allows for viewers to feel more involved and in control, it allows for a community. It acknowledges that users don’t just simply read news on sites they use it in various ways, many of them being social.

Most of the articles and content featured on The Telegraph’s website has been taken from the newspaper and repurposed for its use online. However, it is clear that some of the content has specifically been included for the website only.
The website uses a variety of multimedia as a way of showcasing some of the repurposed content from either the newspaper or other media platforms. For example they provide viewers with news via audio, still pictures, animation or video. Of course by including such a variety of multimedia, gives the website a lot more variation, it allows different stories repurposed for the site to be presented to the best of both the stories and the webs potential. If all content were simply put on screen using text, it would be extremely dull and less interesting.

One particular form of multimedia that I feel The Telegraph website makes great use of is videos. The website has a section titled Telegraph TV, which allows viewers to watch a number of different news stories in the form of a video. The videos included have been specifically put together for the use of the Telegraphs website. Once again viewers are able to email the video footage, as well as get the link/code, which allows the viewer to share news, again forming a community, as well as allowing more interactivity for the viewer.

Here is a list of web 2.0 ideas and tools used on The Telegraph website.

Rss feeds (really simple syndication,)available in the Rss 2.0 format: The feeds contain article headlines, links and description. It is updated as the website is updated. The feeds can be viewed using specialist news, readers either on the desktop or online. This allows for readers to be constantly updated on specific news from The Telegraph, in turn constantly connecting them to news. The telegrph offers 24 different news and feature Rss feeds. The tool is found in the top right hand corner of the top bar, it is not easily noticeable, however, it has the standard orange Rss logo, that is easily identifiable. When displayed in a browser the Rss feeds have a style sheet attached to them, which informs users of how to use the feed in a News reader.

Customised alerts: Similar to RSS feeds customer alerts sends news alerts of the viewers choice straight to their desktop. The use of such alerts allows for more interactivity and user control, which is of course the idea behind web 2.0. Also this tool allows for community.

Flash: This tool is mainly used for advertising but is often also used for some news story headlines that flash along the top or bottom of the page. Using this specific web 2.0 tool, helps grab the reader’s attention, as your eyes are immediately drawn to the flashing text or imagery. Using flash helps highlight the importance of the news, but also it is also a fun way to present news, rather them simply have bog standard text, using flash adds more character and fun to the page.

Comment and Feedback: Both are found at the end of every article. Allowing viewers to add their own comment allows for them to feel more involved, which of course increases interactivity. By allowing viewers to leave their own comments, helps encourage discussion, in turn allowing the formation of a community, which is born from web 2.0.

Links: Links are not included within the main text. By choosing to do this The Telegraph website is able to ensure that they are not sending traffic away from their site to another. However, at the bottom of each article is a related stories links, which allows readers to read other related stories on the website, viewers navigate around the site.

Blogs and User Comment: By clicking onto a button viewers are quickly allocated to the newspapers blog page, which is separate from the papers website. The blog page allows viewers to read different journalists comments. The blogs also include social book marking, as well as RSS feeds. They are laid with a separate navigation bar to the rest of the website, allowing users to easily navigate to other blogs on offer.
Viewers are also given the opportunity to leave their own personal comments as well as include the same links to social book marking and social news as regular stories. Again they allow their readers to submit the content to the five social book marking sites on offer.
The website includes a ‘Welcome to my-telegraph’, which allows readers to start their own blog, join debates and bookmark articles. This adds to the interactivity and community side of the website, by including this, the website provides the reader with more control and involvement.
Similar to the blogs, which allows for more interactivity, involvement and user control The Telegraph website also includes a section called ‘Speakers corner’, which is where viewers can join a forum to air views on topics in the news. To share opinions readers can simply type a message directly into a comment box.

Social book marking: At the end of every article on the site, are hyperlinks, which allow the users to use social book marking and social news links including, del.ioio.us, Dig, Newsvine, NowPublic, Reddit or Fark. These social book marking links allow for viewers to look further into a particular story they may find of interest, as well as share the information.

Including a great deal of web 2.0 helps the Telegraphs website target a more varied readership. Different people want different things from a website so including a varied amount of web 2.0 tools to repurpose content is important.
However, as I have already stated above, The Telegraph website believe themselves to be the best national paper website, which explains why they have invested in many tools and ideas along side those like web 2.0.

Other tools The Telegraph website use include:

e.power: This tool is powered by Newspaperdirect inc. It allows viewers to read the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph at anytime. It is available to users of the website at home or at work and is the same edition as the printed edition of the newspaper. Such a device is extremely useful and successful because once again it gives the reader more control providing them with the chance to read articles they may have missed from previous papers.

Looking at the print version of The Daily Telegraph it is clear that it is a very traditional paper. However, the newspaper is keen for its website to target a more varied age group with particular interest in appealing to more younger viewers.
The newspapers website in my opinion attempts to do this by including much more content to the site then what is offered in the paper. For example they include, fantasy football (to target young boys), fashion, (perhaps for young girls) and also other sections including, ‘Family’, digital life, education and a variety of different games.
Overall, I think that the Telegraph website makes good use of web 2.0. The site covers a wide range of topics, which help in engaging a more varied audience, but also they show their willingness to get readers involved by offering a number of Rss feeds as well as social book marking. It is clear that The Telegraph have invested heavily to compete online.

Web 2.0 strategies for Canvas site

Including web 2.0 tools to the Canvas website I feel will be extremely important to the site. Web 2.0 encourages interactivity and community, which I feel is important for any website and in particular a student website.
Our aim as a group was to create a website that would both engage and involve its users, but most importantly our aim was to create a site that was student focused and able to provide students with what they want. Alongside many other attributes that we will include to the site, including a variety of web 2.0 tools will in my opinion help us in fulfilling our aims for the site.

Here is a list of web 2.0 tools I think would be beneficial for the Canvas online site.

Flash: I think we can use this particular tool to add a sense of character to our page. Flash images or words grab readers attention, it is a more fun and entertaining way of presenting something. Although if we do use it, it is important that we do not over do it, too much flash can become distracting and rather annoying.

Comment boxes: This is a good tool to use because it allows for interactivity, which is important for a student site, as it is important to get students involved. The print publication of Canvas can of course not offer that much interactivity because it is not as fast, expedient or as instant as the web, which is why it is so important that we take full advantage of the opportunity to get readers involved. However, we will have to be extra cautious, as there is the possibility of people posting things of an offensive nature. To overcome this problem I think it is important that we make people fill in a form detailing their name and age and email address etc to before they are able to leave comments. Also we should include a word limit of around 1000 words per comment. All this will help in preventing people posting things that are unacceptable. However, we will still most likely need to have someone that frequently checks the comments.

RSS feeds: Again this would be a useful tool because it allows for viewers to be particular about what news that want. RSS feeds keep readers regularly updated with new news headlines and news stories, ensuring that they are always well informed. Therefore people will always be linked to with our site.
However, because our site is most likely to be updated weekly this tool may not be as much an essential as the others because of there will not enough new information being provided as there would have been had it been updated daily. If we do include them however, it is important that we ensure that the RSS feed icons are easily identifiable and easily accessible.

Search engines: This would be a good tool as it could help in navigating people around the site and to related articles. However, installing this tool could prove difficult and it is important that it doesn’t steer traffic from our site to another.

Social book marking: Although a very useful web 2.0 tool I don’t feel that it is essential that we provide it for our users. This is because the main users of our sites will be students who mainly just want to read the latest student news, features etc and leave comments. I don’t personally think they would find the time or even be bothered to post these articles to del.io.ous, Newsvine etc.

Multi-media: Including a vast amount of multi-media is a must. To help keep our audience engaged it is important that we present them with information in different ways, bog standard text can become very daunting. By adding a bit of variety to the way in which we present content will help in keeping our audience engaged.

Blogs: This is again another tool that I feel will be extremely beneficial but also successful on our Canvas website. Blogging allows for interactivity and the building of a community, which is what we want to be able to provide through our site.

An idea for a blog that I had in mind and think would be good to repurpose for the Canvas website would be the Chat back Jack column, which is a column written by a student journalist discussing issues related to society, politics and even art and culture.
Similar to the above idea I though we could also do an opinion blog that discusses recent issues featured on the website or in the paper from each different section. I believe that both these ideas would work successfully because people like to hear other people’s opinion. It sparks debates, which leads to more interactivity, if people read another persons opinion they are more likely to leave comments giving their opinion.
It would also be good if like many other newspaper websites we could allow for frequent subscribers to start their own blogs, where they could give their thoughts on topical events, although we would have to be extremely weary for any offensive activity.
There are many topics that we could have more specific blogs on which may not be one of the five sections we have included on our site such. For example we could do a blog on fashion, football, TV and show biz, the union etc. This would work because these are all topics that students would be interested in and also because there is always so much to discuss within these topics. It is important that we don’t choose to do a blog on a topic that will lack in content further down the line.
For our blogs I feel that it is important that we include Navigation is provided by author, category, and chronologically to our blogs as well as, enabling RSS feeds. I also think its important that all of Canvas’ blogging areas allow user comments.