Comments on: My ideas for ‘breaking news’ blogs

By: paul canning

paul canning — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 19:53:58 +0000

Who’s programming the automation ;]

Techmeme’s a step ahead in delivering breaking news – see also http://www.wesmirch.com/ – much better than Google.

The tool / idea’s brilliant + would deliver a better ‘breaking news’ UE

By: SimonD

SimonD — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 09:20:30 +0000

I’m not really seeing it as an automated thing, Paul: more as a deliberate editorial product, with a journalist writing the updates manually.

By: paul canning

paul canning — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:18:45 +0000

I am a huge fan of Techmeme and Techmeme River does what it sez on the tin >> http://www.techmeme.com/river

What I abhor with a passion is the kind of frequent refreshing which HuffPost does, usually when I’m about half way down. BBC News doesn’t appear to refresh at all though, which is odd when you think about it.

What I don’t need is a ‘ticker’ or similar but your use – tracking a story, which a lot of people might want to do – actually isn’t that obvious or easy to do. Techmeme and its sisters are the closest I’ve seen, much easier than Google.

By: links for 2007-07-09 by andydickinson.net

links for 2007-07-09 by andydickinson.net — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 23:41:45 +0000

[...] My ideas for ‘breaking news’ blogs « I’m Simon Dickson. Where is the Telegraph going with its Making News blog? Hard to tell at the minute. They’re asking the right question, but based on these admittedly early signs, I’m not sure they’re answering it the way I would myself. (tags: telegraph breaking news) [...]

By: Charlie Beckett

Charlie Beckett — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 22:10:52 +0000

“don’t be shy about getting it wrong”
Journalism should ALWAYS be shy about getting things wrong. That doesn”t mean that you can’t be like a 24 hour news channel and not be wrong for long, but I think the way you throw around ideas like ‘vague’ is precisely what will discredit online news. Call it something adjacent to news, by all means, but ’stuffy’ old facts are exactly what the public needs during a breaking story like 7/7.

By: Stephen Davies

Stephen Davies — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 12:51:44 +0000

Think you’ve also got to consider the audience. Do consumers need to receive vague and sometimes incorrect breaking news updates in a Twitter style app? Would they want it?

To be honest, even though I work in PR, a breaking news blog/Twitter page isn’t going to appeal to me. Unless it involved a client of course.

I’d rather be given the facts in an easily digestible format an hour or two after the incident has occurred. I haven’t got time to receive constant updates of an event as it’s unfolding. Again, unless it was something significant to me.

Or have I completely missed the point here?