News Limited has launched a new site called “The Punch” aimed at news opinion and debate. Launched only two days ago this site already claims to be “Australia’s best conversation”.

The Punch is primarily presented in a blog format which I always think is much more ‘new media’ than the traditional online newspaper format which dictates what editors think you should be reading about, rather than what is just in, most viewed, or most commented on – all formats which lend to an event based or audience driven information hierarchy.

This effort has left me very curious about News Ltd’s broader strategy. They link to their competitors, twitter and even go as far as presenting some of their harshest critics in the “Sites We Like – our web survival guide.” Perhaps someone over there actually gets this web thing!?

Then sigh, I read they will be considering a subscription model down the track.

And I hear – they are not paying contributors. Ho hum. Could it be that big corp got sold on the idea that this awesome new media format could open up opportunities to advertise all over free contributions? Equaling low cost (hopefully), high profits (hopefully) and all off the backs of other people’s good will? This is the primary lash back or concern being talked about today – and rightly so.

So, what are the other traditional players doing? Hmmm…  Now, I know there are some really smart people at News, but I also know it is harder to get those agendas up the reporting lines. So, well done.

At any rate it’s very interesting that they have decided to build a more collaborate offering off their traditional platform, although I know not user groups will see News Ltd as a trustworthy source to such a service. So, what are people saying about it on twitter?

What others are saying:
Punch no Knockout for Journalism

Crickey Counterpoint: two verdicts

@uxrob: News launches http://www.thepunch.com.au/ “Australia’s best conversation”. Nice idea but feels like a flame war waiting to happen.

@mpesce Quoth Crikey: Opinion is not journalism.” I call bullshit. Journalism has always been opinion. Sooner we face that, the better.

Totally agree – controversial launch…  I’m sure the debate will be hot and agendas will be transparent. I’m going to watch and read more. The idea is good, the murdoch aspect is one more agenda among many in this rapidly changing media landscape of survival during the death of print and the vocal control this industry once had. Another addition to conversation is always good by me…

Really keen to learn more about this:

http://www.thepunch.com.au/

Meg Pickard, Head of Communities & User Experience – The Guardian (London)

There are many ways for users to consume content online, begins Pickard. They consume, react, curate and create. Unfortunately we spend most of our time and efforts engaging them to consume and not enough engaging users to react, curate or create.

UCG or user generated content is considered a pretty dry term by Meg, she’d prefer to think of it as users expressing themselves about stuff they are passionate about.

People also tend to get social media and social networking confused. To often the media tends to provide social media tools in a separate environment to the content, rather than having that engagement interacting with the content.

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Meg Pickard, Head of Communities & User Experience – The Guardian (London)

…on, developments at the guardian.co.uk, how to receive user feedback and designing for your mum.

Life at the Guardian

Meg jokingly calls her self an ‘insultant’ for the Guardian (internal consultant), but in all seriousness highlights the value of having someone responsible for focusing on the user agenda, constantly asking ‘why are we doing this?’ and ‘why would people want that?’. If you don’t know what your really asking of your users, then they most certainly won’t get it either.

Meg describes her job as understanding cultures and spotting patterns of which her background in anthropology is proving useful.

Innovation

The web has changed and now there is a much greater desire to be “of the web and not just on it.”

Some of the things Meg and the Guardian team have been thinking a lot is new ways for streams of information to talk to one another.

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“What! What did you say? Anyone can do it too?”

The world is in a frenzy. They’re all discussing UGC or UCC. (yep another acronym to further alienate us – user generated content and user contributed content). More and more we’re hearing people talk about citizen journalism. By definition citizen journalism involves public participation in the generation of news content.

So! The common people are expressing views, creating content and sharing it.

The common people are playing an active role. Hmmmm…. Read the rest of this entry »