More and more emphasis is being placed not on the number of hits a page receives, but on the time spent on the pages by individual users, which can be seen in a study by Nielsen/Netratings. With technology such as AJAX being used to build pages, users can interact without having to reload. Therefore the time that they are spending on an individual page may be longer, but the count of page views lower.
So what does this mean for multimedia? It has the chance to increase the length of time on a page, which can in turn produce revenue by increasing the cost of ads on pages that will keep viewers on them for a greater length of time.
Readers are currently shifting to get their news from online newspapers, as did Michale Stephens. Stephens, a long-time subscriber to the South Bend Tribune, has dropped his subscription to become an online reader, using a NetVibe page to add RSS feeds from the South Bend Tribune and from other newspapers, as well as podcasts and blogs. He requests that the paper continues to provide access and also makes their Archives free.
Newspapers are struggling to maintain revenue in this changing market.
“…But I won't sugarcoat the news: by not filling jobs that go vacant, by offering buyouts, and if necessary by layoffs, we expect to reduce the newsroom staff by approximately 100 employees from what it was at the beginning of the year.”
(Excerpt from Valentines Day speech by Bill Keller, Executive Editor for the New York Times, announcing that 100 employees will be cut this upcoming year)
With this turn in getting news online, there have been many ideas in the past as to what the format for telling stories should be. More often than not, it's writing them for the printed newspaper and then putting the same information presented in the same way online in the form of an article with photos or graphics. There are characteristics of how readers view information online that can boost the presentation.
- Online readers are just as likely to be a methodical reader as a scanner, whereas a print reader is more likely to be methodical.
- Both print and online readers retain more information when alternative story forms are used (graphs, charts, etc.).
- Navigation is the first stop for the eyes online, whereas photos and headlines are for print.
- Lead packages and stories got more attention in both print and web.
- Large, documentary photos got more time from the eyes in both print and online, but graphics drew more eye time online.
- Web ads with motion got more eye-time, but print ads, whether half or quarter page, got equal eye-time.
- When it comes to the amount of text read, online users read more text that print users.
So what are some newsrooms doing? The South Bend Tribune has changed their newsroom structure by making it a Reverse Publishing environment. According to Victor Ortiz, the New Media Director for the South Bend Tribune, the web department is moving into the newsroom. The center of the newsroom will have a big-screen display of websites and the sites of competitors, and that area will be surrounded by the web department, Breaking News and 24/7 staffers, as well as Copy Editors.
"The priority lies in speed and availability, although multimedia and interaction will follow. As part of the reorganization we are implementing a new budgeting process that will help us focus on the multimedia elements of a story. We have also created a new position, Web Commentary Editor, to help focus on the interaction with readers. We have just started this process and have a ways to go before it's all fully implemented, so it's early to say what the consequences are."
Newsrooms are also using other forms of distribution, including Microjournalism, PDF Availability (though throwing the print-product online is important, it does not make for an online newsroom), SMS Alert, RSS feeds, etc.).
Some newsrooms are also changing the way reporting is done. Mojos are being used more and more frequently. A Mojo is a Mobile Journalist: reporters who have high-tech tools such as audio recorders, still and video cameras, and laptops and spend much of their time on the road hunting for stories and putting several up on the Web a day. Their job is to provide constantly fresh web content. The worries of this kind of reporting are the importance of the content and its quality and whether or not it is being sacrificed.
This adaptation of the newsroom may change the way reporters and photographers do their jobs, but not necessarily the foundation.
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