User generated content — the pictures, news and views that so many of us unthinkingly “put out there” — has become a staple of mainstream media, particularly when something interesting is going on. One Australian new media start-up is taking it a step further — using sophisticated software to trawl our tweets, and from that constructs a media outlet more or less automatically, featuring the things we are all talking about.
In other words, it outsources the news judgment to the crowd, mediated by the software and the algorithms.
This is the third in Crikey’s Monday series looking at new media start-up enterprises. So far we have looked at a fairly traditional hard-copy magazine The King’s Tribune and Wendy Harmer’s new online only women’s magazine The Hoopla.
This week it is the turn of The Wall, which is something entirely new. Too soon to say whether it can succeed commercially, but so far it is employing 10 people in Australia, including one journalist — Ed Tadros, formerly of The Sydney Morning Herald and business editor of News.com.au. Most of the remaining nine people work on the software. One is a marketer.
The Wall automatically detects what topics people are discussing on Twitter and other social media platforms, and aggregates the tweets with the mainstream news stories, blogs or Facebook pages that are being discussed or featured in the conversations. The Wall is still in Beta — the software is being ironed out — but it boasts that it “reinvents news coverage. Unbiased, diverse and always current.”
“Our platform provides a real-time view of what’s important to Australians by monitoring, analysing and publishing the most discussed topics on social networks as they occur.”
The Wall is owned by two IT entrepreneurs, Guy King and Bevan Clark. So far it hasn’t turned a dollar, but the founders have sufficient faith in it to have recently started sister sites in the United Kingdom and the US — each featuring the things that are on the minds of the Twitterati in those countries.
Tadros is the “editor” of the Australian site, and he admits it is a strange job. On the morning we spoke the main story on the site had built itself — a collection of Tweets, plus links to relevant stories on AAP and The Sydney Morning Herald.
It is also odd, he says, “because you are dealing with things that wouldn’t normally get in the newspaper”. Although The Wall relies heavily on links to mainstream media, some conversations arise out of blogs, weather conditions, jokes and more. At the time of writing, the front page features discussions of the eclipse, which many people apparently managed to watch while tweeting about it.
Tadros claims The Wall is ahead of the curve, often detecting news before the mainstream media catches up.
His job consists of detecting the terms people use in the conversations, feeding that back to the software developers and making decisions about what qualifies as a conversation and what doesn’t. He curates, rather than gatekeeps, the conversations of the crowd.
He also sometimes censors on the grounds of taste, but tries to do this sparingly. Defamation has not yet been a problem.
The management has declined to give out key statistics such as page views or numbers of unique browsers. Tadros says the plan is to build the audience, get the software ironed out and then rely on eyeballs and advertising to make money. So far, he says, the site’s traffic is “OK”.
Leafing through The Wall, one can’t help but wonder what it would look like if there was no mainstream media. So far, it seems to rely on the stories written by professional journalists to give coherence and context to the conversations.
Having said that, the news judgment, shifting hour by hour, has points of distinct difference from the front pages and leading stories in the mainstream media. A well-tweeted conference of other topic might make the front page of The Wall without hitting the mainstream media at all.
A few weeks ago, for example, a certain journalist’s sandals featured on The Wall.
An obvious question is whether these points of difference indicate faults in mainstream media’s news judgment, or whether it is simply that those on Twitter are a niche market within the mainstream, and The Wall reflects their tastes rather than those of the mass.
The Wall so far raises more questions than answers. But it is an interesting one to watch.
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Margaret Simons, I came back to Crikey, after the Punch removed three compleat strings because they contained my prickley comments. I am set in my way so I don’t want to use tweets or facebook just yet. In a moment of pique I posted this on an empty smelly string. The reason is self evident. Having read your by line. I am heading off to check out The Wall.
Again Telegraph. Why when you ask all your on line readers for our comments. Some of the strings like this one for example days after popping up. Clearly can’t be bothered posting readers comments on line? My comments go straight up on Crikey.com.au while awaiting moderation, and are generally accepted in the Australian, Newcastle Herald, Illawarra Mercury, Hornsby and North Shore Advocate, Express Advocate on line. I must point out when your paper makes an effort to post readers comments while the reported issue is current that support from the letters editor helps promote your failing papers as electronic soap boxes where letter writers / politically active readers may engage with other readers, your journalist and politicians in a public forum. It is great you notify us when an item is occaisionally published. Now that speed is the essence of news delivery and you lot can no longer be bothered. Don’t be surprised when your readers go elsewhere in their move toward on line subscriptions and quick responsive pay for view. Electronic news papers are a public forum if you can’t be bothered servicing the eyeballs you have, soon you will have nothing left to market and sell!
Edward James 0243419140
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsws-missing-state-mps-in-parliament-including-stephen-bromhead-catherine-cusack/story-e6freuy9-1226218819179
The journalist ‘craft’ used to relegate this nonsense to the Gossip Columns. Now it’s part of mainstream. No wonder we are watching the corporatisation of democracy in Europe with little press analysis. No wonder Journalists no longer get on a telephone or use their ‘magic carpets’ to research a story. They can now interview or quote each other and that will suffice to put them in the Walkley Awards. Poor W G Walkley would be turning in his grave!
While it has not worked well for me Mike. I like the idea of being a small part of the growth in public trust journalism. http://thewall.com.au/ looks promising and interesting. When a politician comes out in print with a lie, we the peoples can take that into the court of public opinion, and make a Federal case of it like this “I would like to believe our Prime Minister, unfortunately for her she has a history of lying. Edward James” : http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/pm-denies-ministers-threatened-to-quit/story-fn59niix-1226220662422
It is important that main stream media owners no longer have almost total control of what gets oxygen. When an elected rep ignores a complaint it is cool to have other places like Crikey.com.au to be able to bring political allsorts and their parties selective representation to the attention of readers. Many of whom are their constituents. Or when some CBD business operators in our Local Government Area were being fined $425.00 for using the footpath without prior approval. It was good to be able to expose the mayors family business doing the same thing and not being fined. We still have big names in the media who blank citizens or fob them off by saying the information is defamatory! When these employees refusals are more about their employers advertising revenues and political influence peddling. So many stories are given to journalist who if we are lucky they then chase them up. The time is now and the place is the WWW for grass roots members of communities to start writing their local news and use their work product to support start up electronic media !
Edward James