links for 2009-04-15

The one thing which did raise eyebrows about the social network integration, both inside and outside the company, was the suggestion that we’re effectively driving traffic from our site to other ones. And in these days when websites jealously guard their unique traffic, they have a point. But I think it’s a risk worth taking.

People like to talk a good game on social networking in digital journalism. MediaGuardian’s podcast is full of talk of Twitter and Facebook. But it’s nice to think that of all the newspaper websites out there, we’re the first national trying something different by making our social networking profiles an integrated part of our identity as a website.

Local news is a lost cause on the major social news sites.

No matter how much effort local bloggers and publishers pour into promoting their work on them, it’s a lost cause. The audience there just doesn’t care about local news unless its either a weird-news-of-the-day-type item or a big scandal

So the interesting question is why there is such a big difference in the approach taken online and in print. Online the majority of the serious papers were unstinting in linking to and crediting The Guardian, whereas in print there was a much greater reluctance.