Editor's desk: Week of September 25, 2006

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Saturday September 30

Congratulations to Peter Nowak,

former New Zealand Herald technology editor, who has been named Telecommunications Journalist of the Year in the annual

Tuanz Innovation Awards

. Peter left the Herald in July and now writes for the

National Post

in Canada.

- - - posted 11.37am by Neil Sanderson

Friday September 29

The stats are in

and here are this week's most-read stories on nzherald:

1.

Victim of fatal row yelled for 'cuz' to keep fighting

2.

Cyclist's death under bus third calamity for riders

3.

Two Kahui family members stay silent

4.

Auckland couple's violent death sparks police probe

5.

Presley and Slingshot disagree on her resignation

- - - posted 2.15pm by Paul Smith

Thursday September 28

What do people want to read?

Newsweek

magazine reckons that depends on where people live. The latest edition's cover features a story on the re-emergence of the

Taleban in Afghanistan

. At least that's the front page in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

In the United States, however, the cover features a profile of

photographer-to-the-stars Annie Leibovitz

who had just finished taking pictures of Angelina Jolie for

Vogue

.

Tom Engelhardt sums up the distress of many American bloggers in a posting on the

Nation

website headed

All the News Our Tiny Minds Can Manage

.

Among the comments from readers of his blog:

"Part of me suspects that

Newsweek's

low opinion is justified, however. Most people I know have completely tuned out and/or forgotted about Afghanistan. It seems like attention deficit disorder is unusually, and depressingly, rampant in the US."

Part of an editor's job is understanding what people want to read. The Afghanistan story did appear inside the US edition. It's just not what

Newsweek

thought would cause copies to fly off the shop shelves.

- - - posted 2.30pm by Neil Sanderson

Wednesday September 27

Podcasting celebrated:

Ricky Gervais

is taking a break from his spectacularly popular podcasts but that doesn't mean this relatively new form of media is about to fade away. Particularly if the organisers of this weekend's

Podcasting and Portable Media Expo

in California have their way.

The conference topics extend from how to set up a podcast studio to audience building to converting listeners to revenue. Audio descriptions of the sessions are on the expo site and

Podcasting News

has an interview with expo organiser Tim Bourquin (in MP3 audio format, naturally).

The expo will honour

Grape Radio

as Podcast of the Year and

Leo Laporte

as

Person of the Year in Podcasting

. Leo produces eight podcasts including

This Week in Tech

.

- - - posted 12.05pm by Neil Sanderson

Tuesday September 26

The first-ever broadband Emmy award

has gone to

washingtonpost.com

for Travis Fox's video coverage of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The new award category is officially known as "outstanding individual achievement in content for non-traditional delivery platforms" and seeks to honour the best video journalism created for the web, mobile phones, portable media devices (such as iPods), etc.

>> View the seven finalist videos.

- - - posted 10.50pm by Neil Sanderson

New Zealand's internet industry

doesn't need the confusion created by today's

announcement

and

subsequent denial

that

Annette Presley

is stepping down as chief executive of

Slingshot

. The internet service provider says she's leaving, but Presley - renowned for her battles with Telecom over network access and pricing as well as her starring role in TV's

Dragon's Den

- says she's not. Since she's on holiday aboard a boat in Fiji it may take a while to get to the bottom of this.

- - - posted 3.10pm by Neil Sanderson

Former Rocketboom presenter Amanda Congdon

is vlogging again at

Amanda Across America

. I was really looking forward to watching her meeting with media blogger

Jeff Jarvis

, but try as I might, I just can't get Amanda's videos to play. It's a long haul from the US to NZ and multimedia often doesn't survive the trip. Anyone having better luck?

- - - posted 3.00pm by Neil Sanderson

Monday September 25

Fashion Week is all wrapped up

for another year and I hope you enjoyed reading about it - and watching it - on nzherald.

Our coverage was organised by Megan Gibb and Kelly McAuliffe, both of whom

blogged throughout the week

covering the shows and everything that happened in between. They assembled hundreds of photos into daily picture galleries and even shot and posted video of some of the shows. When I caught up with Megan and Kelly on Saturday - the final day of the event - they could barely keep their eyes open!

Thanks also to the Herald's Fiona Hawtin and Janetta Mackay for their reports and to photographer Martin Sykes.

- - - posted 5.00am by Neil Sanderson

On Saturday I was part of a panel on online publishing

at the

Pacific Islands Media Association's

annual conference in Auckland. It's always great to meet journalists and publishers who want to use the web to distribute their work and interact with their readers.

Here are key points from the panel members in the order in which they spoke:

Neil Sanderson

(editor,

nzherald.co.nz

)

• There are about 50 staff working in the New Zealand Herald's online operation, but a small (and more narrowly focused) news website could be run with a single part-timer. At many of our company's smaller newspapers a sub-editor has additional responsibility for updating their website.
• It isn't necessary to spend huge amounts of money to get online. A very simple site could be built on free blogging software (such as WordPress) for example.
• Content can be supplemented with free news headline services such as nzherald's RSS feeds.
• If you already have a traditional media channel (e.g. newspaper, magazine or radio station) try to find ways for it and your website to complement and promote each other.
• Engage with "the people formerly known as the audience" any way you can [and read Jay Rosen for more on this subject].
• Once you become a real-time online publisher, your customers will start to expect you to continuously update your site around the clock (with a vast army of online journalists to rival the BBC). Get used to the criticism and look for ways to get maximum benefit from the resources you have at your disposal. What valuable services can you provide that are available nowhere else?

Cam Swainson

(

tvnz.co.nz's Tagata Pasifika

)

a) Promote your website at no cost:

• Driving traffic through the site (e.g. instead of having people email your company to enter a competition, require that they go to the website for competition details and to enter
• Identify other sites with larger readership of your target market and ask them to link to your site (e.g. Tagata Pasifika has prominent links from US site PolyCafe)
• Show people what's most popular (e.g. the Video links on the Tagata Pasifika homepage)

b) Promote your site at low cost:

• Purchase Google AdWords. Use Overture's resource centre to see how often those words are entered into search engines.

c) Make money:

• Register for Google AdSense. Contextual ads that appear on your site.
• Register for affiliate programmes such as Amazon, Fishpond or Real Groovy.

George Weir

(

Adventlabs

)

• Know what your site is meant to do. Are you really ready to sell via your website? If not, skip the e-commerce system until you know there is demand to purchase online. A modest site could cost as little as $700.
• Similarly, do you really need flashy (and expensive) graphics? And "be wary of web design companies who design sites for their portfolios".
• Always focus on creating a user-friendly site.
• Arrange your web design and web hosting at the same time, so that the people can talk with each other.
• A good web designer should help you ensure that your pages rank well on search engine results.
• Use local firms for both design and hosting so you have a better chance of getting ongoing support.

For more information on the PIMA conference, check out the

coverage by AUT University journalism students

.

- - - posted 5.00am by Neil Sanderson