links for 2010-01-06

As you would expect by now, regional papers are doing a good job of providing minute-by-minute updates: to name just a few, Manchester Evening News, Liverpool Echo, the Bournemouth Echo and The News, Portsmouth are all using Cover it Live or something similar to keep readers up to date. (A notable absentee from the real-time reporting club is the Evening Standard which has still to significantly invest online since Lebedev’s buy-out, as I’ve said before).

CIL isn’t the best publishing tool ever, but I’d choose it over waiting for the next point at which it’s convenient for a 150-year-old industrial printing process to swing into action. Incidentally, it’s also only a matter of time before some paper idiotically says the snow proves that global warming is a myth.

Personally I’m conflicted about the overall importance of multimedia. It’s an additional storytelling tool, however I’m of the opinion that multimedia isn’t the go-to tool that many like to make it out to be. If your readers won’t watch a 3 minute video, then you might want to be more selective in how you allocate those resources.

But for Joni Alexander, founder of Llandaff News, this close-knit community is the perfect opportunity to bring the hyperlocal initiatives she saw flourish at home in the United States to a new audience.

Is the award-winning http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk website, with 72 dedicated community micro-sites, simply too good and draining too many print readers? Why spend more than £100 in cover price per year when the internet provides MORE content for free?