Publishers are trying out many new forms of content to attract readers. Sometimes its about new forms of packaging; sometimes its a whole new form of content delivery.
Rolling News
There is little doubt that non-stop original news is a real eyeball grabber. UK tech site The Register has become Europe's leading tech news site because of its near total focus on non-stop news.
News Ticker
The ticker is increasingly being used to give a sense of real-time non-stop news delivery. To be effective it has to link to original or newswire delivered news copy. BBC News and The Guardian make good use of the ticker. But the ticker is still an emerging technology, with most sites using it guilty of using it to flag up existing stories and thus reducing its effectiveness.
Comment
The Guardian says that 10-15 per cent of its traffic now comes as a result of reader comment on blogs and Comment (its online equivalent of the op-ed column). The Guardian also tracks 'most active' comment in a fascinating real-time display of online activity.
Creative use of Video
The New York Times is using rolling video news to drive traffic to its subscription-based content. It provides four news videos at any time, and updates 2-4 every day. But blogs are pushing the envelope when it comes to dropping video into content. Techdigest.tv drops its one minute videos onto YouTube and then links them into copy.
Podcasting
For publishers it means developing radio skills; for broadcasters it's a fairly simple matter of repackaging recorded radio productions. Somewhere in the middle a new form of media is coming to life. Adam Curry is credited with inventing the podcast and is also the world's most successful independent podcaster by virtue of producing a 'podshow' that showcases other podcasts.
E-paper editions
It is unclear whether readers really want to print out mini-newspapers from their web sites, but The Telegraph is convinced that is the case, delivering an e-paper every day at 4pm. It's an intriguing blending of paper and website, that will be closely watched.
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