My name is Joe Bloggs and I would like to read the news online- where do I look?
Easy, I do a search on Google for ‘news‘. I get all the big broadcasters CNN, BBC News, MSNBC, Fox news and ABC but also there are the news aggregaters such as Google news, Yahoo news and news.com.au. Which do I choose?
Ok, so my name is not really Joe Bloggs but this illustrates a point: unless the public have a specific news provider in mind, it is unlikely they will venture further than page one of their search results. This is why internet branding has become key to the media world.
Media brands are central to networked journalism. Branding is essential because like with any network, people can recommend you to their friends or forget you exist.
At the moment newspapers are relying on their existing brand reputation to draw visitors to their sites. But the battle is just warming up. The newspapers are testing their tools. Video clips, RSS feeds, bookmarking, blogs, search engine optimisation, twitter, tagging, breaking news reports and exclusive stories are all being used.
And who will be the winner? Joe Bloggs of course. His news service is now interactive, more varied and there is an ever increasing importance that the information is reliable and trustworthy.
Filed under: blog posts, Online Journalism, internet branding, network journalism
Bloggers write 
Good points, but what do you actually mean by networked journalism? I know what Jarvis means and I think that adding this in with the tools you have already mentioned offers a lot for people who don’t want to just passively read but actively engage with what is going on around them.