links for 2009-10-23

"I'm sorry *if*"...just trying to work out if her weasel worded dismissal of my complaint about last week's column now means I am a legitimate first party able to complain to the PCC about this article - it describes me as hysterical and essentially repeats all of her original slurs against Stephen...

"Last week she described Gately as a: 'founder member of Ireland's first boy band, he was the group's co-lead singer, even though he could barely carry a tune in a Louis Vuitton trunk...popular but largely decorous'. Whereas this week, he was: 'a talented young man'". It is almost as if she wrote this weeks column thinking nobody would be able to compare it to last weeks because since it was published a week ago you wouldn't be able to read it any more...

Nice bit of research, but actually not as damning as the people passing around the link would make out IMHO.

"The Guardian is launching an initiative in Leeds, Cardiff and Edinburgh and would like to recruit bloggers interested in creating and curating local multimedia content (text, photographs, audio and video) for their city. This is a completely new role for the Guardian, which we believe reflects the shifting nature of journalism. The successful candidates will be confident bloggers, know their yelps from their tweets, have a passion for local news and understand how to build relationships with the local community. A journalism qualification is desirable but not essential. Sarah Hartley from the Guardian — who will be managing (and hiring) these beatbloggers — is online for you to ask questions about the role".

"Three national newspaper websites attracted more than 30 million unique users for the first time in September, with the Guardian reclaiming top spot with a record figure just under 33 million. The Telegraph and Daily Mail websites also broke the 30 million barrier, with the Telegraph moving ahead of the Mail". I think we all suspect that, thanks to Jan Moir, the Mail will be back #1 in October. Well, unless ourselves or the Telegraph can strike back with something equally linkbait-y in the next week!

"The family of Jade Goody has won £35,000 in damages from Mirror Group Newspapers and photographic agency Newspics after the People published pictures of the former reality TV star’s burial". I always wonder whether these figures are based on the value the paper got in extra sales and advertising by virtue of having the infringing material printed, or whether it is just a number conjured out of thin air

"But once read-only public access is implemented, which Google promise is coming soon, we could start to embed waves on pages. Think webpages with embedded waves that update automatically when new content is published, without the user having to refresh. Or journalists around the world discussing the news in real time. Or just the flexibility of being able to embed third party gadgets on a page".

"The DevLab process is basically a simple one. A proposal is made to the departmental management team, in this case what is a Google Wave and how, if at all, is it relevant for us as a company. Once approved the developers are taken completely out of the standard development process for five days. This period is to be spent on investigation. There is no requirement for a working product that can be released or even demoed. Rather the outcome is understanding, and for this understanding to be spread throughout the team".

"Guardian developers Lisa van Gelder and Martyn Inglis studied Google Wave in a recent DevLab research project. They shared their work with the team here and then wrote down their thoughts for the Technology and Open Platform blogs."