Digital Journal ‘Power User’ list features top contributors in global crowdsourcing project

Nov 7, 2011 // by admin // Media blog // No Comments

Digital Journal, a global digital media network, today published a comprehensive list of the 20 most active contributors for the month of October. The data was published as part of an ongoing crowdsourcing project that tracks and reports how Digital Journalists, bloggers and citizen journalists interact in a newsroom.

In September, Digital Journal launched a massive gamification project that tracks and reports the activity of contributors across the media network. Recording actions such as quantity of articles published, frequency of visit and level of engagement, Digital Journal rewards points and badges to individual contributors based on how active they are. The members who stay the most active in the month are then rewarded with a “Power Users” badge.

“When we launched our gamification project in September, we expected to see some interesting results because we are recording virtually every move made by our contributors each month,” said Chris Hogg, CEO, Digital Journal. “When we looked back through the data, we were really happy to see such a diverse group of contributors from around the world take home the coveted Power Users badge.”

In addition to creating incentive for contributors to participate in the social news network, Digital Journal’s gamification project aims to showcase talent and create a level of transparency that gives a completely open look at how people interact with a news organization and how user-generated content is valuable in the wider news ecosystem.

“We’re as much a technology company as we are a media company, and this project really aims to marry the two so we can rely on data to identify key contributors across the world,” said Hogg. “Most newsrooms have no idea how productive or hard-working some of their employees are, but this initiative gives us a granular look at how every one of our members and contributors interacts with us in real-time.”

In no particular order, Digital Journal’s October 2011 Power Users include:

Digital Journal compiles data on a monthly basis and resets the points with the beginning of each month when a new competition begins. More info on Digital Journal’s gamification project can be found on the company’s website here.

About Digital Journal:

Digital Journal is a global digital media network with 33,000+ professional and citizen journalists, bloggers, photographers and freelancers in 200 countries around the world. Regarded as a pioneer and leader in crowd-sourcing and user-generated content, Digital Journal is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Digital Journal also consults news organizations on how to empower their audience to acquire content, drive revenue and increase engagement from digital media properties. For more information, visit digitaljournal.com.

Google search algorithm tweaked to add more timely results

Nov 4, 2011 // by admin // Media blog // No Comments

by Kev Hedges (Guest contributor/Digital Journalist)

Google has tweaked its search algorithms to make results more timelier.

The California-based search engine acknowledged that many of the results it retuned were stale. Let’s say you wanted to search for coverage updates or commentary on the weekend’s big NFL game between the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills, or perhaps this Sunday’s Premier League football clash at Craven Cottage between Fulham and Tottenham Hotspur. You may find your returned results include reports on last season’s corresponding fixture or reports of old classic meetings between the two sides from seasons gone by. What the user really wants is something more real time; such as which television stations this weekend’s big game is showing, who is playing and what is the current form of both sides etc. We have been spoiled by real time, seconds-old updates gracing us on social networks sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Now Google has recognised the urgency to get in on the act. According to the New York Times, Google searches will now be timelier and will affect around 35 percent of its searches.

I road-tested the search pattern “Fulham v Tottenham” and found although last season’s FA Cup clash between the two sides still manages second place, there are still at least two “live” entries which refer to this Sunday’s clash within the top four returned results. Google has said it wants to work out if you are searching for recent material such as the latest news in the Presidential race, or the latest developments in the Occupy Wall Street movement demonstrations.Google will find trending topics, news items that update regularly. So if next summer you search for “Olympics”, rather than get a history of the great sporting event – you may see results on the latest Men’s 100-metre sprint results.

Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land and an industry expert, said:

This is the result of them saying we need to find a way to more effectively get fresh content up, it does help with the issue of people thinking, ‘Wow, if I need to find out about something breaking, I’ll go to Facebook or Twitter for that.’

However Google does acknowledge that not all searches are based on timely requirements as PC World reports, cook recipes or American Civil War, for example and standard information points in time.The new algorithms could change how search-engine optimisation and news media is displayed and utilised.

This article originally appeared on Digital Journal [Link]

Wall Street Journal tops US newspaper circulation ranking

Nov 2, 2011 // by admin // Blog // No Comments

by Leo Reyes (Guest contributor/Digital Journalist)

The Wall Street Journal, a US-based newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company, has topped the list of the most-circulated newspapers in America with a reported average circulation of 2,096,169 copies on weekdays.

Taking the second spot is USA Today with an average circulation of 1,784,242 per weekday.

The New York Times took the third spot with 1,150,589 weekday copies circulated and 1,645,152 circulated on Sundays. The Daily News of New York landed in fourth place with 605,677 copies on a weekday, which includes 4,580 branded editions and 667,638 on a Sunday (of which 746 are branded editions).

The Los Angeles Times ranked No.5 with 572,998 weekday copies and 905,920 copies circulated on Sundays.

Other US newspapers that made it to the top 10 most-circulated papers include the San Jose Mercury News, New York Post, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and Dallas Morning News.

The list of the top 25 US newspapers with their corresponding circulation numbers from April to September can be viewed here.

Declining newspaper circulation in recent years has forced publishers to close print editions and switch to online editions to save on cost due to declining advertising revenue. The continued decline in print circulation is largely due to changes in consumer reading habits which have been influenced by free online news.

Early this year, the New York Times announced it generated more than 100,000 paid subscribers.

The New York Times’ new subscription plan was launched amid opposition from those at one of the most popular news organizations in the world.

This article originally appeared in Digital Journal [Link]