Puffbox

Sky News has launched a high-profile campaign calling on the leaders of the main political parties to commit to a televised debate - or strictly, several - at the next election. They make a compelling case - pointing out that even Afghanistan managed it. Why on earth, in the year of our Lord two thousand [...] read on »

It's just a small thing; but for the first time this morning, I noticed a Twitter message prompting a 'BREAKING NEWS' 'strap' on Sky News TV. Specifically, culture secretary Ben Bradshaw's tweet about the Andy Coulson phone tapping thing (sent, I notice, from 'mobile web'). Now I don't know if Sky were tipped off via conventional [...] read on »

I note Sky News are trying something unusual in their coverage from Beijing. All 22 members of the crew departing Osterley for the Olympics will be contributing to an 'Olympic Twitter Microblog'. They promise we'll hear from 'presenters, reporters, producers, camera operators and engineers: 22 different perspectives, 22 different pairs of eyes & ears, and [...] read on »

Flicking across the news channels tonight, I bumped into recorded coverage of Wednesday's Lords Communications Committee. You had the BBC's Frank Gardner and Sky's Tim Marshall, plus a couple of other senior journalists, giving their frank opinions on the state of media, politics and government. I only caught the last few minutes; it looks like [...] read on »

The new Sky News website is open for public beta viewing, and there are some significant developments. The use of actual moving video in the homepage's 'top stories' carousel area is a genuine surprise, and I think it works, although there must be significant implications on the content production and technical sides. Personally, I don't think [...] read on »

Some very interesting numbers from Robin Goad at Hitwise, showing just how dominant (or not, he concludes) the BBC News website is in the UK news market. What I find most interesting is the mix of news providers in this ranking. You've got broadcasters, newspapers, portals and aggregators (both social and automated), with no one grouping [...] read on »

There's no stopping CoverItLive, the specialised live-blogging app. It's becoming a regular feature on some of the leading political blogs... and now the Sky News website has arrived at the CIL party, carrying a live three-way interview (you can't really call it a 'chat') with the leading candidates in the Crewe & Nantwich by-election this [...] read on »

Steve Herrman, writing on the BBC's Editors blog, is absolutely right: the move to video embedded on the page is 'quite a significant moment' for the Beeb's website. Except that, judging by the first visible example, it's got issues. It's either failing to buffer, or returning an error message. As explained in more detail on the [...] read on »

Breaking news from, er, last week. Amid all the usual yah-boo of who won the RTS News Channel of the Year award, I missed the fact that Sky's 'Sky dot com news' bulletin at 7.30pm won the Innovation award. 'The winning entry aims to integrate the web and tv audiences and was judged to be [...] read on »

I've been extensively quoted in a technology story on the Sky News website this morning, in which I describe Microsoft's proposed purchase of Yahoo as 'a deal for the accountants and advertisers, not the users'. I'll tell you why. I like to keep a lid on my RSS consumption: anything over 100 feeds feels like too [...] read on »