domaintools: finding contributors by domain

Say you find a site without an ‘About’ page.  How do you get in touch with the author?

Well, it’s not a particularly new or innovative resource this, but Domaintools (formerly Whois Source) is a great research tool for any journalist trying to snoop a scoop in this way.

Snooping the social media: the PCC and privacy

Here’s a fantastic article by Colin Meek at journalism.co.uk from yesterday.

It details how to use advanced operators in Google (in conjunction with a knowledge of field and metadata conventions) to unearth all kinds of private and public information in social networks.

Attention financial journalists: FREE sources

Financial journalists are not particularly well served for free sources on the net.

Providers of financial information have long been attuned to its market value, which given the premium on insider information in the industry, should come as no great surprise.

Online journalism mourns death of the home page

Today the BBC reports on findings from Jakob Neilsen’s latest usability research.

The research brings into focus two rather worrying issues for online journalism:

Most [web users] ignore efforts to make them linger and are suspicious of promotions designed to hold their attention.

In 2004, about 40% of people visited a homepage and then drilled down to where they wanted to go and 60% use a deep link that took them directly to a page or destination inside a site. In 2008, said Dr Nielsen, only 25% of people travel via a homepage. The rest search and get straight there. [Jakob Neilsen]

Linkbaiting: hoaxing has a new buzzword

The web is a-buzz with fallout from the latest high-profile hoax.

The story in question (now amended, here) concerned the conviction of a 13-year old Texan boy for stealing his dad’s credit card and using it to hire two prostitutes with which to play Play Station (awww!).