17.23

And that’s it. Signing off, and time for a drink.

17.22

Mann says that on Twitter, content has about an hour lifetime, but on Facebook it can keep rolling forever. It’s about posting the key content of the day and harnessing the shares.

17.21

Different stories have a better resonance on Facebook; we don’t pump breaking news on to Facebook because people will unfollow us, says Tom McArthur.

17.18

Q: What happens when people talk back?

A, Mann: If you can engage your followers, it means you can ultimately work with people on a story. I don’t engage with those people that make threats, which happened when covering Libya.

17.16

Twitter and Facebook are not a replacement to traditional journalistic practices, according to Kuenssberg. If these services were shut down, we wouldn’t be crippled – these are additions to what we do, not replacements.

17.14

Q: Do you see that Twitter is becoming more “tribalisitic” – it doesn’t matter what the truth is, people will just follows one person and will defend that viewpoint.

A, Haddon: People have always clustered online around a viewpoint. I think it depends on the issue.

A, Kuenssberg: we have to remember that Twitter is a self-selected group of people, it’s not a full picture of society.

17.11

Q: Is the conversation changing as a result of the rise of Facebook comments?

A: The tone of comment is very different when people aren’t anonymous. It’s not they’re accountable, but they are identifiable.

Kuenssberg says that we should never limit the ways for people to comment, regardless of how they comment.

17.09

Q: What guidelines should there be from news organisations for freelancers strongly connected with that organisations?

A: Ultimately the same regulations apply, you should have the same rules as any full time staff. At Sky, everyone gets a copy of the social media guidelines, it’s just a part of what we do now, says Mann.

17.05

Q: How do we self-regulate? Laws of libel are close to being breached on social media.

A, Mann: We have to accept that we don’t have control over everything. But if we see something hit a node, such as a celebrity, and then it’s our job as journalists to step in.

17.00

Q: What’s the best way to break news?

A, Laura Kuenssberg: Whatever is the fastest way to do it. If you have a camera, do a live broadcast and tweet afterwards.

16.59

We’re now discussing “ownership” of followers and what happens when an employee moves company after having built a mass following.

Consensus is that no one owns the followers, and keeping the account within the company would be fairly useless – followers would most likely leave.

16.54

BreakingNews.com editor now speaking, Tom McArthur, says that attributing the source is important.

BreakingNews see themselves as curating the social web and the news that exists there. They admit it they dropped the ball by retweeting the recent Paterno death, but managed to limit damage by keeping the original tweets and sending new tweets and writing a blog post addressing the errors.

16.50

Haddon says they avoid tweeting breaking news because that’s the AFP business model – their clients pay for the wire, not so that they can see the news breaking on a free Twitter stream.

16.48

Katherine Haddon, who has been reporting from Afghanistan with AFP, cites social media as essential for confirming stories and gathering information – “did anyone hear an explosion at X near Y?”

16.46

Social media users aren’t stupid, we should remember that. We should treat social media as a very different platform to traditional broadcasting, even though it is still a form of broadcasting.

16.45

Mann: “Journalists should be the anchors in the rumour storm.”

Previously ITV, BBC, Sky would never report on rumours, but now we report that there are reports of rioting, for example, but when we knock something down and disprove it, we report that too.

16.44

Neal Mann is talking about how usage of social media has expanded since 2008. It became obvious that it needed to be used as a news gathering tool, but problems arose as there were no guidelines.

Kuenssberg and Mann both adhere to the policy: “If you wouldn’t say it on air, don’t post it to Twitter.”

16.41

We’re getting into the last session of today. It’s going to be more of a debate and discussion, so tweet questions to @newsrewired.

The panellists are: Laura Kuenssberg, business editor, ITV News, @ITVLauraK; Neal Mann, digital news editor, Sky News, @fieldproducer; Katherine Haddon, head of online, English, AFP, @khaddon; Tom McArthur, UK editor, Breakingnews.com, @TomMcArthur.

Moderated by Kevin Anderson, journalist and digital strategist,@kevglobal.

16.18

Sorry about the lack of questions there, WiFi issues.

Q: Are newsgames having an effect of the type of journalism your organisations are doing?

Answer from Al Trivino, NI:
No, we treat them as a separate entity currently.

And that’s it for newsgames and gamification.

16.14

Q: Are newsgames having an effect of thee types of journalism your organisations are producing?

16.10

Opening up for questions now.

16.07

We’re moving on to the infamous “Curse of the Cow Clicker.” The text was a critique of Farmville, but there was a game built into the article. When readers clicked the word cow, a large cow image popped up. To complete the game, readers had to figure out the order to click the 94 instances of the word cow.

It’s got deliberate horrible Facebook sharing, all to build on the article’s criticisms of Farmville.

16.01

But games aren’t limited to things that are quantifiable. There was a game where users had to relight candles as they faded, connected to the Madrid bombings. The underlying message? Remembrance is a simple act, but it requires constant renewal.

15.58

Both games and economic systems are governed by rules. Therefore economics fits well into games, as shown in Cutthroat Capitalism –  a game about the economics of being a Somalian pirate.

15.56

Shannon Perkins, Wired.com, speaks next on the topic of what do games represent well?

15.54

The Guardian is trying to create a standard way of laying out data, so that it can be  entered into standard visualisations. This offers embeddable widgets and infographics, and also allows other newsrooms and users to put their own content it. It’s all open source, and developments with the project can be followed via twitter: @ajdant.

15.52

Sharing with friends is important. Ask the right questions and post it on a Friday afternoon and you can get a big audience.

15.50

One of the most popular posts is just quotes from Sheen and Gadaffi, pick who said what. It went viral because it was so simple, topical, and entertaining.

Ironically this took very little to work to make, and was invented by someone on the newsdesk.

15.48

Data is a great starting point for games. Government spending cuts were made into an infographic, and then redesigned as a game where readers had to make their own cuts to make the required savings. Readers could then share their own unique pathway with friends.

15.45

He’s talking about game mechanics now. It’s about making someone feel like they are moving, and progressing.

Simple reward mechanisms make content a lot more engaging – he references Zynga and Farmville. The user is carrying out mundane tasks but it is incentivised.

15.43

He opens by asking what’s changed?

Puzzles have always existed in print (crosswords etc), but online opens up a far more wide-reaching experience.

15.41

Next up is Alastair Dant, Lead Interative Technologist at the Guardian.

15.40

Lessons:

- newsgames drive engagement, and moves news from passive to active consumption.

- audio effects, voice and music etc., help to deliver an informative experience.

- motion graphics help create a solid narrative

15.37

Q: “How long did the app take to make?”

A: “8 weeks. But we wern’t targeting the Olympics, it’s about seeing if we can create content that will outlast the 24 hour news cycle that operate in.”

15.35

He’s now lunging around the stage, phone in hand, attacking an invisible opponent. He’s rewarded with a silver medal after several assaults. Not one to play in public, perhaps?

15.33

He is now demoing several minigames that are blended with informative audio, for example telling us about the mask and a minigame that involves pulling down the  mask over your phone touchscreen to put it on.

Based on performance, the game then rewards you with a medal/certificate.

15.30

We’re now learning about Olympic fencing, while Travino talks about how he wants to look at music next. It’s a space to watch.

He says visual representation is important – aesthetics are essential for holding someone’s attention.

15.27

Trivino is now demoing their Olympic Visual Dictionary.

It lets you learn about Olympic sports, practice techniques, and lets you collect medals, and compare with friends. All on your phone.

15.25

He has several objectives in his current post at NI:

1 – use sensors to enhance the personal experience.

2 – explore traditional and interactive graphics, and whether they can evolve into motion graphics.

3- gaming narratives and educational formats.

4 – explore collectable models.

15.21

Al Trivino, director of innovation at News International, is speaking now. He says we need to start thinking about innovative content now, not in three years. Newsgames are innovative.

15.18

Try something new; newsgames can seem a little weird and off the beaten path, but experimentation can be fruitful.

Video games can yield good journalism.

As a journalist, we should be explaining things in detail, and a game can be the best way to achieve that explanation.

15.14

There is also a news game based on rescuing the Chillean miners, that involves spinning a wheel to winch up the miners, one by one.

15.13

Newsgames can  also teach – insidedisaster.com/haiti/experience

15.12

Newsgames editorialise, and can raise awareness.

Games based on real events like the Hudson river crash, raise awareness and engage readers in a new way.

15.09

Bobby Schweizer is opening the session, and poses the question, “what is a news game?”

Current events games, and infographics that allow you explore data are two examples.

16.06

And once you go multiplatform, there are new readers waiting for you.

16.05

Interactive editions are “sexy, expensive and the future!”

But at the moment they’re difficult for both art editors and advertising – no one’s really done it yet. Goldsmith says start with a digital replica and begin that conversation with your reader before developing interactive…

16.00

Interactive editions are developer-friendly and perform well for conversion. They’re great for big online brands that already produce lots of interactive and multimedia.

15.57

Digital replicas, Goldsmith concludes, are a great first entry into multiplatform strategy but they are NOT a long-term solution for the biggest brands.

Instead, there are interactive editions for a very sexy user experience!

15.54

He says, unfortunately, digital replicas are still seen as a poor relation – although tablets are changing that. They’ve started to really make sense over the last year.

15.50

Digital newsstands are a GOOD thing for magazine publishers, he says.

Digital replicas look beautiful – very inportant for consumer magazines – and encourage people to actually pay for content.

15.45

And last but not least, we have Mike Goldsmith from Future Publishing…

15.41

They use the weekly print edition to go in depth into the background to the stories they’re covering as they break daily online.

15.39

He cites an amazing case study: the editors of Basel Zeitung walked out when the paper was sold to a right wing politician. Swiss citizens came out in support of the editors, who then decided to set up their own democratic community paper – helped by Sourcefabric.

The new organisation sees itself as a news website which happens to put out a print edition – not the other way round.

Open source really helped them as a startup because they didn’t have to pay for a license for software.

15.34

Sourcefabric help smaller and less wealthy newsrooms to “punch above their weight”. Often this is achieved using “the least sexy side” of online journalism – manipulating the back end of websites, etc. They put content first and build the workflow around it. That’s more important than being limited to specific platforms – “must be ready for anything!”

15.30

Douglas Arellanes from NGO Sourcefabric has taken to the stage… He’s here to tell us about his efforts to ‘open source the newsroom’

15.28

The Times is proud to be Angry Birds in downloads!

15.25

Adams thinks launching a largely static newspaper app in an age of rolling news was a bold move. She thinks readers like a break from reading online where they’re continually asked to make decisions about what and how they read.

15.24

Now we’ve got Lucia Adams, web development editor at the Times. She’s talking about the plunge behind the paywall and helping to launch the iPad in the UK.

15.21

In other words, multiplatform strategy must take into account and be part of the organisation’s “business goals”

15.18

The Economist uses tablet versions to offer tasters of Economist books which in turn may entice people to read the magazine. Multiplatform strategy is all about creating continuity but also using difference in media to create hook-ins.

15.16

The Economist already uses data to produce books such as ‘The World in Figures’ and ‘Which MBA?’ They are also interactive data books, like apps – not a passive reading experience.

15.15

They’re looking at ways to socialise their audio. iTunes is too much of a ‘closed garden’ he says – not enough incentive to share and interact.

The Economist also want to take data from the magazine and turn it into apps that readers can use.

15.13

Our first speaker is Ron Diorio from the Economist group. Did you know they produce an audio book version of the Economist every week?! They also use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr…

15.08

Peter Clifton’s first experience of multiplatform strategy? Ceefax at the BBC! How far we’ve come…

15.01

We’re about to kick off on multiplatform strategy. Hope the wifi holds out!