A bit more light has been shed on News International’s plans to charge for online content. James Harding, editor of the London Times, disclosed yesterday that his newspaper plans to charge for 24-hour access alongside a subscription model. Will it work? (more…)
Back in dark, drizzly Ireland after a week in dark, drizzly Denmark, where I had many dark, drizzly conversations with media types from around Europe about the future of newspapers. It’s not bright, apparently.
One speaker talked about the ice-cutting industry in 19th century America. Back then, ice-cutting was big business. Thousands of mutton-whiskered men worked at cutting blocks of ice from wintry shorelines, and shipping those blocks in container ships to the UK and the West Indies, where ice was a highly prized luxury.
Then, someone invented the ice factory. Now ice could be made in London or anywhere else. But it was a complicated process, involving dangerous chemicals. The ice-cutters reckoned they could stay in the game by wrapping their ice better and building bigger ships. They had the market share and the business relationships to beat these upstarts, didn’t they?
10 years later, they were gone.
Flash forward another few decades, and the rich and happy ice factory owners heard about the invention of something called the ‘refrigerator’, which would allow anyone make their own ice. No problem, reasoned the factory owners. We have the proven technology, the established network for delivering ice around the country. We know our customers, we’ll just make our ice delivery service even better.
Well, you know the rest…
The question troubling my European confreres last week was: ‘are we the ice-cutters or the ice factories? And how the hell do we get into the fridge business?’
Technology can be deeply irritating. On the day before John Waters writes a stinging critique of user generated comments in general and a thread on the Observer’s site in illustrative particular, our own comments technology, Have Your Say, crashes and burns horribly. We are working very hard to fix it as quickly as possible, but it means a potentially interesting debate on the subject is stifled. (more…)
No, it’s not a philosophical question. Starting today, we’ve reorganised the way we present some of the content on the site. Up to now, the Life and Culture section contained all the articles from the daily Arts and Features pages of the newspaper, along with weekly supplements including HealthPLUS, Motors, Property, The Ticket, WeekendReview, the Saturday Magazine and Go. (more…)
Bleak. Black. Bleeding awful. On the face of it, the latest newspaper circulation figures from the US make for woeful reading if you work in the print news media. (more…)
That’s according to Ralph Waldo Emerson, who obviously never worked as a chief sub-editor. In these parts, we try as hard as our little minds will let us to keep that hobgoblin alive by adhering to the rules of the Irish Times Stylebook. (more…)
A terrific piece today by Noel Whelan about how we need a revolution in the way in which information is made available to us, the public. If the whole John O’Donoghue affair is to amount to anything more than a minor footnote in the political nerds’ almanac, then it should spur a proper debate about accountability and openness in this state. (more…)
Your very interesting and provocative comments on the last post have caused a lot of soul-searching in here - thanks to everyone. As I said (comment 85 if you’re so inclined) there’s a few meaty subjects around improving the website, which I grouped into key subjects, one of which (navigation and architecture), I’ll have a first stab at responding to here. (more…)
As I said at the outset, I hope to use this blog to get the views of you, the user, on what we can do to improve The Irish Times. As time goes on, I hope we can discuss specific subjects, different sections of the site, ease of use, making content better, etc. But what the hell, why not just throw it open to the floor?
If there was one thing you’d like to see done to improve what we do, what would it be? All suggestions will be received in good faith, and taken seriously (unless they’re obviously unserious, in which case they’ll be taken in that spirit too). Sarcasm is acceptable, wit is preferred, but I do honestly want to hear what you’d like to see us do better.
By the way, those fond of brevity can get me on Twitter: @hlinehan
Fascinating story breaking in the UK today about the gagging of the Guardian, which has been prevented from reporting on a parliamentary question tabled for the House of Commons this week. (more…)
