In the run up to news:rewired we’ll be publishing some thoughts from our speakers on the subject of their session. Simon Rogers is editor of the Guardian’s Datablog and Datastore, an online data resurce which publishes hundreds of raw datasets and encourages its users to visualise and analyse them. He is also a news editor for the Guardian, working with the graphics team to visualise and interpret huge datasets.

Simon’s session:

Linked data and the semantic web

• An introduction to linked data and the semantic web – what should you know and what benefits can linked data offer journalists? A session looking at where media on the web is headed and what skills future journalists and communicators will need.
  

With: Simon Rogers, datablog/datastore editor, the Guardian; Martin Moore, director, Media Standards Trust; Martin Belam, information architect, the Guardian; Silver Oliver, senior information architect, BBC.

Most of the data we deal with is historic – ie, by the time we find out about it, the event has been recorded and passed. So, predicting what will happen in the world of data is a risky business. But, if pushed, these are three trends I would predict for the world of data in 2011:

1) Larging it
2010 has been the year of enormous datasets: the Treasury’s COINs release and the Wikileaks releases – and that trend is only set to increase. The new year will see some more enormous datasets released by the government and journalists need to learn the skills to cope with them.

2) All about local
As datasets get larger, they will give us greater insight into smaller areas. People want the stats about their town, their neighbourhood and their street and the new year will see more and more of these hyperlocal datasets released.

3) How we see things
The trend in datajournalism over recent months has seen thousands of people around the world try their hand at data visualisations. Some have been amazing, some less so. The joy so far has been seeing them happen at all. From now on, the quality of those visualisations will become much more important. The ones that will pull through will be those which have a clarity that can be understood anywhere.

Follow this link to buy tickets for news:rewired – beyond the story.

Experts in interactive storytelling and visualisation shared tips with delegates at news:rewired today. And while they said dealing with graphics is a “culture shift” for some publishers, they thought most were ready to expand their news presentation styles.

Ollie Williams, Olympics reporter for BBC Sport, said it was important for anyone considering producing interactive graphics not to underestimate the time involved, and be sure the story can last.

My tip would be not to bite off more than you can chew and be aware of what your long-term commitment to the interactive is.

He added that the use of interactives is often best executed within niche markets, which “allows you to find new and interesting information”.

If you can think of anew way to present it, it is much easier to sell to readers. If you create something your reader can click around, play with and share with people, then I think no matter which niche you are in you can make a lot more mileage from a story. Interactives can be the most compelling content, which you can explore in a way you often don’t with  an article.

Breaking down the different avenues publishers could explore, Rob Minto, interactive editor at the Financial Times, defined two types of interactive graphics, those that tell the story and involve the reader and those that allow the reader to manipulate the data to make their own story.

He used several examples to illustrate how the FT uses visualisations and interactives. This included an interactive ‘spiders web’ illustrating the different alliances between car makers, and a moveable timeline to show how the FTSE 100 has changed: both telling, and allowing the reader to engage with, the story.

Williams then compared them with an economic deficit cutting interactive, which enabled the user to make selections and then find out how their ‘decisions’ would have made an impact on the the budget. As his examples demonstrated, Williams’ biggest advice to delegates was to turn the visual into the story itself. Basically – be creative and different.

This is about news and in the crowded news environment it’s hard to stand out. Make the story about your graphic.

The presentations were concluded by Francis Irving, developer for ScraperWiki, who outlined how they can help journalists transform confusing data into a newsworthy story. He showed two examples of datasets the company can ‘scrape’ data from, producing more accessible tables or even visualisations such as maps, saving journalists time.

The only challenge left for the journalist, he added, was writing the final story clearly enough when dealing which such technical material. Now well aware of what help is available in the field of data scraping, Ollie Williams added that he wished he had known of ScraperWiki when he was working on creating interactive graphics to cover the Beijing Olympics.

James Fryer, deputy editor of online Gloucestershire arts and entertainments guide SoGlos.com, outlines his top five do’s and don’ts for success online.

DO # 1 - Be Great

• Set out to fulfil a niche and be the best at what you do. Soglos.com’s high-quality editorial content is Gloucestershire specific arts and entertainment-related, and exclusively written by experienced journalists.

DO #2 – Search engine optimise.

• Ninety per cent of SoGlos.com traffic comes through Google. Marry publishing and SEO through a bespoke CMS if you can afford it.

DO# 3 – Know your market and products.

• Be very specific about your target market of advertisers.
• Research what you competitors (both off and online) are offering.
• Create a clear suite of products.
• Clearly distinguish between editorial and advertising – know what can be bought and what can’t.

DO #4 – Establish a clear sales strategy

• A great website with an established audience may organically generate some advertising sales, but not enough.
• Divide your roles to encompass media sales, or commission sales professionals.
• Promote, but don’t get bogged down with web-specific advertising features.

DO #5 – Forge partnerships

• Carefully plan and forge print and radio partnerships, if applicable.
• Syndicate content in a controlled fashion, increasing audience and brand awareness. But, cash is almost always better than a contra-deal.

AND THE DON’TS

DON’T #1 – Compromise your model

• Develop and adapt, but don’t compromise what you set out to achieve and what you believe in. Don’t give in to pressure to diversify unnecessarily.
• Maintain your editorial integrity.

DON’T #2 – Be afraid to stand up for yourself.

• Stealing content online is as easy as copy and paste.
• SoGlos.com has experienced more than 200 individual infringements on their copyright from amateur blogs to the largest publishing groups in the UK.
• Make the choice, you lose time and money tackling it, but you may be able to seek retrospective license fees.

DON’T #3 – Spend all your time on Twitter.

• Is social media activity building you an audience which can be monetised, or directly making you money?
• SoGlos.com has had some success with Twitter etc., but real success came with
• YouTube. 3,500,000 video views. Excellent for link building and monetised through AdSense and licensing.
• Time on the telephone trumps time on Twitter.

DON’T #4 – Rely on UGC

• User generated content may be here to stay, but we agree with predictions that the new decade will see a resurgence of the importance of high quality journalism, written by journalists.
• Advertisers trust Soglos.com because it is written by professionals.

DON’T #5 – Stop moving forward.

• Respond and develop quicker than large publishing houses.
• Content is still king, but innovations including interactive map, bespoke CMS development and new embeddable widgets all keep Soglos.com at the top.

At SoGlos.com, 2010 will see:

• A redesign
• The launch of iphone apps
• 100,000 uniques per month.
• Unveiling of new franchise model, empowering independent publishers across the UK.

In a candid interview with news:rewired, Kevin Marsh from the BBC College of Journalism discusses the future of newspapers, the BBC’s prioritisation of accuracy over speed, niches in modern media, and why big media will survive.

Part one:

Part two:

The Times Online’s web developer, Joanna Geary and the Guardian Local’s launch editor, Sarah Hartley discuss citizen journalism and local media:

According to Adam Westbrook, freelance journalist and multimedia producer, video does action and pathos really well, but it’s not necessarily suitable for every story. Multimedia journalism isn’t simply about writers making videos.

Westbrook is “passionate” about the audio slideshow – audio mixed with stills. The audio and the images are high quality and the paraphernalia of video production has gone. This leaves journalists to focus on the actual story.

Good audio with strong photographs is a potent mix, and Westbrook illustrated this with his great piece on John Hirst, aka Jailhouselawyer:

Audio Slideshow: Hirst v. UK from Adam Westbrook on Vimeo.

So what do you need for an audio slideshow? There are obviously the usuals – a story and a camera. But journalists have to think about prospects for good photographs and the potential for great audio. For example, if you’re doing a piece on a boat, a recording of water lapping against the hull would be perfect

Westbrook stresses that the audio needs to be the first priority. Then get the pictures to match the words.

“Let the stills breathe,” he said. “A great image is about your eyes being free to move around the picture.”

Westbrook’s one piece of advice for getting into making audio slideshows is simply to start doing them. He sets himself weekend challenges – interview and photograph on the Saturday; edit on the Sunday; upload by the end of the weekend.

The industry needs innovation and that can’t be done without a fear of failure, so experiment in your own time.

Kevin Marsh (@kjmarsh) head of the BBC College of Journalism gives the opening lecture at news:rewired: