This is something that was pointed out to me a while back, but I’ve only noticed it myself now. Both Trinity News and The University Observer are being indexed by Google News, apparently since the start of this academic year.

This is interesting for a couple of reasons- I know with Trinity News never specifically added itself to Google News. Yet, somehow, we’re recognised as an information portal. We’re currently running on Joomla, whereas the Observer is running on WordPress- meaning that the choice of CMS seems to have little to do with compatibility. Inclusion also raises the stakes for student publications here, as any error or possible defamatory statement could, in theory, be carried in Google News Alerts, delivered by e-mail directly to those whom they refer to. While I’m not suggesting that student papers shouldn’t take due care, it’s a reasonable concern for institutions with such limited resources. I’d also see it as an indicator that Google is listening to all the critics who have been pushing for a focus on hyper-local news.

With some major news organisations complaining about Google’s aggregation, etc, I feel rather privileged to have my institution deemed important enough to join its ranks.

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Posted by Dave Molloy in •Journalism •Tech
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On October 26, EllisLab announced some more details of ExpressionEngine 2.0: crucially, the licensing options. There’s zero mention of a free option, which now seems to be replaced by “Freelancer” which is “only for web professionals,” though how they judge this is lost on me.

As many of you know, this site runs on EE. It’s not beautiful by any means (it runs off a default template), but that’s down to my own lack of attention and time. The backend, I assure you, is an absolute pleasure to work with.

I know EllisLabs has probably decided to focus on the professional market rather than fight with WordPress, but I think it’s a dire mistake. I can wholeheartedly recommend EE to anyone (and I frequently do) and would most likely have used it if I had input into any commercial projects. Now, I’m going to be forced to switch CMS and learn a new system.

Ellis Labs say they’ll continue to provide security support, in a vague way: “It really depends on how long it takes for the significant majority of the community to switch to 2.0.,” according to Leslie Camacho, President of the company. The example timeframe he uses is about 2-3 years; that’s a lifetime in web terms. The technology will be antiquated long before that.

I’m just resigning myself to the fact I’ll have to jump ship. Little as I do post these days, I’m getting my workload under control and was going to dip my toes back into web development. Such a pity that the only WP-beating blog platform is no longer an option, particularly since it could have introduced a generation of developers to the product, if EllisLab had ever chosen to go down that route.

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Posted by Dave Molloy in •Tech
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I recently followed a Twitter link (and I’m sorry, but I can’t remember the source) to a video made by the CoPress group about creating “the web-centric newsroom”:

The Web-centric newsroom from CoPress on Vimeo.

Point one is elementary: of course people search the web for story ideas. Point two, to post online fast to compete: well, that’s a fine and good idea. But point three- web-first workflow, is the main focus of the video, and it encourages us to post online first and move that content to print.

This is all well and good as a theory, but there’s some serious problems for most of us in implementing any real kind of web-to-print workflow. Let’s take a look at the problems with this kind of approach.

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Posted by Dave Molloy in •Journalism •Tech
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(This has been cross-posted on Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists, where the August topic was a discussion on why the blog ring has been quiet over the summer months.)

So, I’ve been quiet on Twitter, quiet on Facebook, and quiet on blogging. So, it seems, has everyone else I follow in the student media. This isn’t a “I’m sorry, I’ve been trying to think of things to post” message: you’ll get no such response from me. I haven’t posted because recently I’ve had no value to add to those who subscribe to my various messages, and if there’s one thing every post should contain, it’s value for the listener.

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Posted by Dave Molloy in •Journalism •Tech
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