currybetdotnet The Guardian archive

'Sorry - this page cannot be found': How newspapers handle 404 errors - Part 1
A comment when I started my recent 'Newspaper Site Search Smackdown' series of posts prompted me to go and have a look at which British newspapers use sitemap.xml files. As it turned out, it was only the Daily Mail and The Scotsman which did (well, and The Telegraph and The Mirror and Metro), which meant that I got to have a close look at the 404 error pages generated by the others. I thought it might be worth running through...

Read the full post - Published May 5, 2008 in Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Star, Newspapers, The Guardian

Newspaper "Site Search Smackdown": Round 3 - The Guardian vs The Mirror
I'm running a series of smackdowns between British newspaper site search engines, to test how fresh their indexing is. In Round 1, The Sun was put down by The Mail. Yesterday's Round 2 saw a perfect 10 from The Independent, and the lowest score so far, from The Telegraph. Today it is the turn of The Guardian and The Mirror to face the test. The rules The rules of the contest are quite simple. Go to a newspaper homepage...

Read the full post - Published April 10, 2008 in Daily Mirror, Newspapers, Search, The Guardian

Google hijacks traffic from newspaper site search
There has been a controversy over the last couple of weeks about Google's introduction of 'Search in search' boxes. For some large web properties who appear at #1 for their brand name, Google has been adding a search box underneath their listing, allowing users to refine their search to get results for just the one domain. Amazon and Flickr are a couple of examples of where this has been introduced, although Amazon seem to have got the feature squashed. I...

Read the full post - Published March 31, 2008 in Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Google, Newspapers, Popular, The Guardian, The Sun, The Times

Measuring the iPlayer impact on broadband usage
There was an interesting piece on the new-look online Guardian yesterday about how the better than expected take-up of the streaming version of the iPlayer was putting undue strain on Britain's broadband infrastructure - "What is the true market impact of the BBCi iPlayer?" Steve Hewlett points out some flaws with the original market impact assesment as part of the regulatory process for approving the iPlayer - the Public Value Test - because it did not rigorously enough examine the...

Read the full post - Published February 12, 2008 in BBC, The Guardian, iPlayer

Some very British reporting of the Chania court case
For much of this week, my adopted hometown of Chania has been the focus of some of the British press pack. They've been here following the trial of John Hogan for the death of his son last year in Ierapetra. Some of the coverage has been ripe with cultural ignorance. Germaine Greer, for example, writes a textbook feminist interpretation of the trial - well, I suppose that is her job - that fails to take into account any local Greek...

Read the full post - Published January 26, 2008 in Greece, Media, Newspapers, The Guardian

How accessible are Britain's online newspapers? Part 4 - The Guardian
I've been doing a series of checks on British newspaper websites to see how they match up to their accessibility responsibilities. So far I've looked at the Express, Mail, and Mirror. Today, in the last of this week's reviews, it is the turn of ex-broadsheet The Guardian. For each set of tests I have been looking at the homepage of a site, and then the top story from that day's paper, in order to access both types of template. For...

Read the full post - Published November 9, 2007 in Accessibility, Newspapers, Product review, The Guardian, Web

More details on the Linux user base of the BBC, The Telegraph and The Guardian
A mistake can have unintended consequences, and a nice one after Ashley Higfiled's original claim that the BBC only has 400-600 Linux users is that it has thrown a bit of a spotlight on OS statistics in the UK media landscape. First of all, Ashley has posted on the BBC's new BBC Internet Blog to upsize the estimated Linux user base to between 36,600 and 97,600. Secondly, Neil McIntosh of the Guardian came out with some figures for Linux usage...

Read the full post - Published November 5, 2007 in BBC, Daily Telegraph, Linux, The Guardian, Web

So where did those 900,000 mysterious Spooks viewers go?
Yesterday Stephen Brook was reporting in the Media section of The Guardian that BBC1 Islamic propaganda vehicle Spooks had lost nearly a million viewers in a week. He put it down to the effect of the Champions League on ITV1 "Arsenal's bravura win in the Champions League last night attracted nearly 6 million viewers to ITV1 - and BBC1 spy drama Spooks was hit hard. The audience for Arsenal's 7-0 victory over Slavia Prague, peaked at 5.9 million at 8pm,...

Read the full post - Published October 25, 2007 in BBC, The Guardian

A tour of Tour De France news sites - Étape 4: The Guardian
Whilst the Tour De France has been taking place over the last couple of weeks I have mostly been following it online - whether it has been good news or bad - and so this week I have been reviewing a variety of the sites I have visted to assess the quality, depth and usability of their coverage. So far I've looked at the offical LeTour.fr site, France 24 and BBC Sport. I have also been following the 2007 Tour...

Read the full post - Published July 25, 2007 in Cycling, Newspapers, The Guardian, Tour de France, Web

Extra URLs for the Guardian Gamesblog in Bloglines
Whilst I was doing my recent survey of the Web 2.0 features on British newspapers, I spotted one or two quirks which I wanted to highlight. This one is actually more of a quirk in user behaviour and Bloglines than in the publishing paper. Bloglines shows all the different feed URLs it has stored for a particular page's RSS feeds. Usually it is just the variations between Atom or RSS 2.0 available from the publisher. Occasionally you'll see some errant...

Read the full post - Published June 14, 2007 in Bloglines, Media, Newspapers, RSS, The Guardian

Bloglines subscriptions numbers and OPML file for The Guardian's Comment Is Free site

Published June 1, 2007 in Bloglines, Media, Newspapers, RSS, The Guardian, Web

Newspapers 2.0: RSS links on The Guardian's new homepage

Published May 25, 2007 in Media, Newspapers, The Guardian, Web

Newspapers 2.0: How Web 2.0 is The Guardian?

Published May 2, 2007 in Media, Newspapers, The Guardian, Web

The White Horse bridge comes back to haunt me in Salzburg

Published March 30, 2007 in BBC, Football, Newspapers, The Guardian, Voting

In Our Time Greatest Philosopher Vote

Published June 1, 2005 in BBC, Media, Newspapers, Radio, The Guardian, Voting

Digital doesn't automatically mean quality

Published March 7, 2005 in Music, Television, The Guardian

Distant Shores with Peter Davidson

Published January 5, 2005 in Doctor Who, Television, The Guardian

The myth of the indestructible CD

Published October 12, 2004 in BBC, Music, The Guardian

London Phone Codes "Change"

Published July 14, 2004 in BBC, Daily Mail, Media, Newspapers, OFCOM, The Guardian, The Independent

Close, but no cigar...Jack Schofield on browsers, phishing and security

Published July 8, 2004 in The Guardian, Web

BBCi Connector in The Guardian

Published February 6, 2004 in BBC, The Guardian

So is Coca-Cola good for music or not?

Published January 26, 2004 in BBC, Music, The Guardian

Sometimes the politics of the media are more important than the politics

Published December 18, 2003 in BBC, Politics, The Guardian, Web

Search engine placement advertising hits the broadsheet press

Published September 23, 2003 in Search, The Guardian