Making new headlines
Hello everyone,
Back in the summer we discussed me coming on to this blog roughly once per month to update on what the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sport website was up to, and what our plans would be for the coming period.
I missed October, although my bosses, Ben Gallop and Barbara Slater, both blogged, so hopefully that got me off the hook! But I'm back now, with a few things to mention.
Firstly, you will start to see some headlines on our website that look slightly different, and probably longer, than the ones you are used to. This is because of a thing called Search Engine Optimisation, which ourselves and ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News are entering into. Steve Herrmann, the Editor of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News website, blogged about this last week, and at the risk of repeating slightly what he wrote, this is basically about making our content more easy to find on search engines.
In the case of sport, you can quite easily see why traditional headlines do not help the audience find those stories on search engines. Down the years, users of newspapers and then websites got used to seeing Liverpool referred to as the Reds, for instance, but I doubt many Liverpool fans out there search online for Reds very often. You would presumably type in Liverpool. Equally, Gerrard is not as good as Steven Gerrard if you are trying to help people find a story about that particular player.
The headlines on both the News and the Sport websites have been a set length (between 31 and 33 characters) for around seven years now, because the same stories have been used on Ceefax as well as online. Ceefax's maximum headline length is 33, and we decided that editorially anything less than 31 was too short on that platform. But although this restriction came about because of the platform, rather than for editorial reasons, we found that 31-33 characters allowed you to sum up just about any story perfectly adequately.
For this reason - and because Ceefax will survive for a few more years yet - we are keeping this length of headlines on our front page, and sport-by-sport pages (we call them indexes, or indices for the pedants in the office). But when you click through to the actual story itself, you will generally see a more expansive headline with more information to help those using search engines.
Apart from that change, it's been a quieter period for sports news recently, or it was until , which prompted a flood of interest and coverage, and saw a surge of visitors to our website.
Our live coverage of the reaction to Thierry Henry's handball
The day after the handball, last Thursday, . There was so much to cover, coming in thick and fast, that we felt this was the best way to present it, and it also allowed us to use contributions from our audience, via 606, Twitter and text.
If you saw this rolling text coverage on Thursday, I would be interested to know what you thought about it as a way of covering live, updating sports news. Generally, we only use it to cover actual live sport, rather than reaction to live sport!
Away from the week-to-week coverage, the two biggest events that are coming up for ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sport, and which we are now in the middle of planning for, are the and the football .
We will roll out the first version of our Winter Olympics site in December, to coincide with the return to TV screens of a new series of . The full version of the site will come in time for the start of the event itself, which takes place in Vancouver from February 12-28.
By the time we get to the event, our site will have live streaming of all the TV coverage (for UK users only) plus catch-up video for those that find the time difference (Vancouver is eight hours behind GMT) difficult.
There will be live text commentary, Tweets and blogs from reporters including Sir Matthew Pinsent and Lizzie Greenwood-Hughes, schedule, results and medals tables, reports and photo galleries, venue guides, sport-by-sport guides, athlete profiles, and more.
The next big date for the World Cup is the draw in Johannesburg on 4 December. Again, we will have some brand new content in time for that, with much more to follow when the tournament gets a little nearer (it's 11 June to 11 July).
Plans for the World Cup are a little less advanced than for Vancouver, but I will keep returning here to update, and it's definitely worth checking the site around the day of the draw for some content that ought to really whet the appetite ahead of football's greatest event, which is now a mouth-watering six-and-a-bit months away!
Lewis.
Lewis Wiltshire is the Editor of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sport website.
Comment number 1.
At 25th Nov 2009, 30STMLCFC wrote:Cheers Lewis. Nice to know of the updates that are in progress and look forward to seeing the changes when they take effect.
Is there anything outstanding that we should expect for the World Cup Coverage, or do you have any exciting ideas for it that haven't been publicised yet?
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Comment number 2.
At 25th Nov 2009, Thoughtsonfootball wrote:Really enjoyed the 'live reaction' stuff but think that it should be used sparingly. There is always the temptation to expand on something that has been well received but it should be kept in mind why it was needed.
An event which was as global as that should attract the kind of coverage the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ gave it. However, an equally similar incident in the Premier League should not.
Keep up the good work and look forward to hearing about the plans for the World Cup...maybe you could give the license fee payers a chance to give feedback on some of the ideas?
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Comment number 3.
At 25th Nov 2009, Blazey wrote:Why am i not surprised that you fail yet again to mention motoGP or any kind of motorcycle racing, after this seasons poor ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ coverage & poor isnt strong enough to describe your attempt at web coverage im starting to think mad murdoch ( junior or senior )might have a point.
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Comment number 4.
At 25th Nov 2009, Lewis Wiltshire wrote:FoxForever and Thoughtsonfootball (by the way, thanks for the link to your blog - I'll take a look), on the World Cup I cannot reveal too much now about our plans, because some of them are subject to contract and some of them are not even that far along.
Obviously because it's next week I do know a lot more about what we're doing around the draw, but that is still being finalised, and I can't discuss it here until that's sorted. But I promise to come back and write a blog about it when we know it's certain.
Blazey - that's a little harsh, since this was a blog about what's coming up in the next period, and Moto GP has just finished! I wasn't trying to review here what's happened in all of the sports we cover this year, but I am happy to hear any Moto GP thoughts you have. If it's the web coverage you want to discuss it, I'm happy to discuss it, and if it's TV coverage, I can promise to make the right people aware of it.
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Comment number 5.
At 25th Nov 2009, Chris wrote:agree with #2, the live reaction to WC playoffs was brilliant, but please dont overuse the idea. Well done!
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Comment number 6.
At 25th Nov 2009, Blazey wrote:Well look at your motorcycling section & tell me thats good enough, the picture on the new date for silverstone is of F1 you couldnt be bothered to even dig out a bike picture that about sums your whole approach to bike racing.
You only bother with motoGP ignoring WSBK BSB WSS ( Brit world champion ) or any of the other major series.
Now if your now saying you will provide the resources to bike racing like say one of the other minority sports like sking or rugby union then Great but we both know you wont.
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Comment number 7.
At 25th Nov 2009, ©³ó°ù¾±²õ. wrote:Should be very interesting to see.
I personally love the Live Text stuff and I think it should be done more often. Being a football fan of Plymouth I was wondering whether you could do a similar thing to the Saturday's Live Text for the Premier League. The Championship is a really well supported league and I think deserves a bit more coverage and a Live Text thing for it would interest a lot of people myself included.
Cheers
Chris
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Comment number 8.
At 25th Nov 2009, swingandamiss wrote:Blazey, whilst I don't wish to speak for Lewis or anyone at the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, from where I'm standing it looks like you've got a bit of a chip on your shoulder about something.
The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ only has so much money to cover an awful lot of sport, and therefore there are going to be certain championships and events that don't get as much coverage as the fans would like. To argue that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ doesn't cover the BSB or WSS is a little short-sighted, as the last time I checked, they don't cover the F3000 or GP2 either. I strongly doubt that it's that they have anything against motorcycle racing, but more to do with the fact that unfortunately, there's only so much pie to share out, and a lot of hungry mouths.
Also, I'd hardly call Rugby Union a minor sport. ;)
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Comment number 9.
At 25th Nov 2009, Dazz0r wrote:Blazey, I assume you got out of the wrong side of bed this morning?
Let's be honest, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ do an absolutely fantastic job in covering so many different types of sport. All you have to do is look at the A-Z page of sports and you will see a list of around 50 and that's not to mention all the blogs, special features, interviews, videos, special micro sites... etc!
In the interest of a fair debate (and before you scream at me for being biased towards the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ) I shall play devils advocate. The F1 and Football sections do seem to get a lot more effort put into them, whereas other sections (such as MotoGP) are a little less in-depth, but you have to realise the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sport website is a fantastic place to come and quickly catch up. There are always going to be other websites out there that can give you more in-depth content on every subject, but that is because they are private companies with large workforces. The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ do a fantastic job delivering us all the content they do, considering they have to keep the workforce to a minimum otherwise people will complain that the license fee is too expensive.
Just to clarify my point a little further and help you too, I am an Ipswich Town fan and while the Football section is great I do like to find out more about my club and read up on gossip, so I view other sites as well. I think this is probably what you should do? I use a site called NewsNow.co.uk, if you go on there I'm sure there is a MotoGP section which will show you all the latest news in real time from all the MotoGP related sites out there. Give it a go mate!
And remember, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is what makes Britain so fantastic!
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Comment number 10.
At 25th Nov 2009, DrummondM wrote:The use of better headline structure sounds good if it helps with the search process.
As a long-time user of the bbc sport website there have been one or two changes and innovations I've liked and some that I haven't. The use of Live Text for busy days of sport, such as cricket updates and football coverage have been great but using it as the headline for the live reaction (the day after the incident) for the Henry Handball was O.T.T. and an irrelevance.
Everyone knew that the result wouldn't be overturned and let's face it, there wasn't exactly much 'reaction' worth putting on the page. As nothing was going to change it was a worthless exercise.
Interesting story? Yes.
Worth devoting Live space to? Definitely not.
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Comment number 11.
At 25th Nov 2009, SimplyZola wrote:An auto-refresh feature for 606 wouldn't be a bad idea!
But: The website has developed greatly since I was first using it, fantastic work - keep it up!
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Comment number 12.
At 25th Nov 2009, Jimmy McNulty- The voice of reason wrote:I wish the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ would make changes to 606, when was the last time that had wholesale changes?
I reckon at least 6 years.
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Comment number 13.
At 25th Nov 2009, Noneofyourbusiness wrote:Can i make a personal and totally pointless (ie it is the flavour of the month and hence unstoppable) appeal for LESS reaction from the general public and the whole 'tell us what you think' marlarkey?
I know i'm contributing to it now but i'd like the media to have expert people telling me their expert opinion some of which i might or might not agree with. I dont really want to see the endless reaction of Joe Schmoe of Guildford. Mainly because (a) he knows nothing and is not a professional (b) if i wanted to know the average man's view i'd ask my mate down the pub (c) he's probably a Man U fan who knows even less than nothing.
For something like the Henry handball i'm not really interested in 5,000 separate Irishmen telling me how terrible it was but would prefer the view of one or more of your football correspondents and some people in the game. Preferably including Roy Keane!
And in advance of your World Cup coverage can i also suggest you try and make an effort to give more coverage to teams other than England. Sounds perverse but with many players from other countries in the Premiership i'm sure there are plenty of people keen to have some interest shown in their club players playing for other countries. Maybe a weekly feature on Valon Behrami's latest hair colour? Far more interesting than another drone about John Terry.
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Comment number 14.
At 25th Nov 2009, Lewis Wiltshire wrote:To BarmyBamford (No 5) and Drummond Murdoch (No 10), thanks for your comments about the live text reaction to sports news stories. I am inclined to broadly agree with BarmyBamford - effective on occasion, but not to over-used. I'm inclined to think Drummond is being a little hardline, but I don't rule out as a course of action. If enough people really disliked what we did last week around Henry, we wouldn't do it again. But the traffic figures we got last week would have to be taken into account too, as people were voting with their feet.
Chris at No 7 makes an interesting point about live text commentary for the Championship. So this is a different area from a rolling blog on sports news as it breaks. This is about extending what we do for the Premier League to the Championship on busy Saturdays, or midweek evenings. To be honest Chris we did consider it back in the summer when we got the Football League rights. We didn't do it because our team in the office cannot see the Championship games while they are live, for the most part. We can do live text commentary on the Premier League because our team are watching the live feeds coming into Television Centre for Match of the Day later that night. The Football League Show is produced by an independent company, on behalf of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, so the live feeds do not come into Television Centre.
I am happy to expand on that last point if it does not make sense - and I wrote a blog back in the summer on the logistics around the Football League Show.
On MotoGP - Blazey, I think you are right to point out that we should not have used an F1 picture to illustrate a Moto GP story. I think the team were probably trying to get across from within the Moto GP story that Moto GP would be alongside F1 at Silverstone next year. But it does not look great, and we will change it.
As for motorbikes generally, the situation is this. The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sport website cannot and should not try to cover absolutely everything. We do not have the resources to cover everything to the degree you would want, and we would also be putting some commercial websites at an unfair disadvantage if we tried to do so. What we do therefore is make sure the website complements the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's major sports on TV. F1 and Football are two of our very biggest sports, that is true, and we do a lot more on rugby union around the Six Nations or tennis around Wimbledon.
We did make a decision in motorbikes to just cover Moto GP because that is the sport we have the TV rights for. Dazzauk makes an interesting point about using other sites - we actually have an obligation, and a genuine desire, to link out to sites which can add to, and complement our coverage or, a lot of the time, have a much greater depth.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that we can't do everything, so we try to do the best job on our major sports and then act as a guide to the best of what's out there on the rest of the web, hopefully sharing some of our traffic along the way with some of the best commercial sites.
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Comment number 15.
At 25th Nov 2009, CartmanEazyE wrote:The example you use contradicts your point about search engine optimisation. No football fan is going to search for 'Republic of Ireland'.
And please, please, preserve us from headlines like the google-chasing local newspaper sites - 'Rafael Benitez tells Steven Gerrard to play with pride' or something. Cart before horse.
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Comment number 16.
At 25th Nov 2009, DrummondM wrote:Lewis, I think perhaps my comments did appear hardline but in reality I think the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ sometimes seems to try too hard to be funky and up-to-date when in reality the core product of bringing news is great.
I guess I was just reacting to the story as I saw it. The story was about two foreign countries (albeit the UK's nearest neighbours) and I'm not sure how much coverage would have been given to other countries.
I'm sure there was a lot of traffic, I followed the link myself, because the headline was talking about live reaction. In reality there wasn't much and it wasn't of an official nature.
On most occasions when something like that is happening, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ site normally updates the existing story with quotes etc and this seems to work.
I don't have an issue with big stories (World Cup, Champion's League and FA Cup 3rd Round, draws being examples) being covered as there is a sequence of events coming thick and fast, I just think that the story limped along and too big a fuss was made on the site. Hope that explains it a bit better!
Your comments about live feeds for the Championship makes a lot of sense, why cover somethign if you can't give a good, live and regular update.
I think (and hope) many other people are like me and have an interest in lots of different sports; as a result, having one place to get stories and results would be really useful. To that end it would be great if money was spent on reporting a range of sports, boxing, racing, rallying, athletics, etc rather than on fancy Live text stories.
Having said all of that, maybe I'm just getting old!
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Comment number 17.
At 25th Nov 2009, Lagellerotumblero - Show goes on after 606 wrote:I have to say I was suprised at the reaction-to live text, I NEVER knew it was a live text till when I checked the site again...I'm torn really, coz I felt like Beeb were making too much of a fuss. Just don't do it again, unless England win the world cup maybe!
Otherwise, the live text is superb, I think it's the first thing I come for on this site. It is interactive, and the commentators have a sense of humor, and one day I'll sue for being kept on the edge of my seat! ;-)
Among many things I want on the site, is better European football coverage, as in other leagues besides the EPL, SPL and Championship. At least more tables, more charts, stats from the other big leagues. I know you had live text coverages of El Clasico and the Milan Derby, plus Phil Minshull's blog, but surely you can do better than that. At least with more scores, charts and stats.
Coming to cricket, you do live texts of England matches and other big tourneys, a bold exception is last year when you did the Ind-Aus test series. I would like to see more outside England matches, for example you could've covered the ODI series between the 2 countries-which was a cracker.
And tennis-I would like to see more schedules please...I was looking for starting times of the Murray-Nando match, not to find any! You cover Queens-Wimbledon quite well, but quite not other tournos. Please see into that.
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Comment number 18.
At 25th Nov 2009, JoDan wrote:Good to hear about the changes.
Will ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ continue to get their sports news from Skysports and pass it off as their own under there new changes?
I'm amazed how many times I read the phrase "³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sport Understands" several hours after hearing the same sports story on Sky.
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Comment number 19.
At 25th Nov 2009, Rob wrote:I've got agree with Drummond Murdoch - the reason I clicked on the live feed for the Henry handball story was because of the reaction 'oh, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ are doing live feeds on sports news stories now?' and I felt it was a bit OTT. I can see it working if you have press conferences to cover though.
One question that all the RoI/Henry coverage got me thinking about was why the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ cover Irish sport quite so much? By this I mean the Republic, rather than Northern Ireland or all-Ireland sport - after all, it is a different country?
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Comment number 20.
At 25th Nov 2009, FoxesofNuneaton wrote:Longer News Headlines...erm no thanks.
Just a snappy title would be nice, its the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sport website, not the 10 O'clock News.
Also can we have the top 4 not be mentioned for a day in the Main Sports Headlines, like 'Gerrard signs new contract' or 'Terry thinks Chelsea can win', it puts me off clicking Football. Only when they play, they should be mentioned.
Funny how Ceefax is being mentioned, I thought the Sport Department was raving on how great the Red Button was and how we would no longer need Ceefax...they were wrong!
Also, I agree with one poster, 606 needs changing, its a mess.
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Comment number 21.
At 25th Nov 2009, Lewis Wiltshire wrote:Hello SimpreZola and Jimmy McNulty (by the way, as a fellow devotee of The Wire, I can only applaud your username). You're both right, 606 has not had an awful lot of investment in the last few years. It's not quite six years - it's actually only three-and-a-bit since we launched a whole new version of that site. But since then it has only had the odd tinker to fix a problem here and there. I won't try to hide that, and I equally won't try to pretend it will get an awful lot more investment. I'm sorry to say that, but development resources are always hard to come by and there's always a more pressing priority - a World Cup site, for instance, or an Olympics, or something else.
In a way these points are on the opposite side of the argument from Noneofyourbusiness, who wants less reaction from the general public published on our site and across the media. In a way, I take your point. Anyone who has seen Mitchell and Webb's brilliant satirical take on the media's obsession with (as it's called internally) User Generated Content or UGC will see that we have, collectively, taken it too far on occasion. However, my personal belief is that we have made things better, on the whole, for allowing our users are able to feel a part of the output they consume. To tell us what they think as you are doing here, to shape the news, contribute to it, be a part of it. I will always defend that, but it's also perfectly reasonable to suggest that on occasions we do that in a slightly clumsy way. I'm happy to accept that, and we'll keep thinking about ways to do it better.
Drummond - I appreciate your follow-up, and I don't think you are getting old. Or at least, we all are, and it doesn't seem quite so bad when you consider the alternative!
Comment 17 - it's fascinating how there seems to be an almost insatiable appetite for European football. I used to hear this a lot on this blog, so we launched Phil Minshull's blog, and still you want more! Not that I blame you, but it's food for thought as to how we reflect this without pouring still more resources towards it. Because one thing's for sure - if we do more of this, we'll have to stop doing something else, and that's never popular. Perhaps there's a way we can reflect content on other sites - do you use any good European football blogs you could recommend? On your point about tennis schedules, it's a regular source of frustration that you just don't know the start times. Because one match follows another, and you don't know when one will finish, you can never be sure. We regularly have conversations in the office where we desperately try to guess when Andy Murray will be on, to plan for live coverage of his matches, for instance. Where we know, we will tell you, I promise!
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Comment number 22.
At 26th Nov 2009, 3bikeSteve wrote:Cricket - back in 2007 during the Ashes series, I emailed a suggestion that the Scorecards and the Live coverage could do with some coverage of the runs per over rate - ie a graph. Even aftger the live coverage some indication of the run rate as the game progressed would add to the scorecard, especially for the ODI and Twenty20 games.
When I suggested this before I got a positive feedback that it would be looked at and possibly implemented - though not for the 2007 Asshes / ODI games.
Any chance of looking at it again before next season ?
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Comment number 23.
At 26th Nov 2009, phantomgorilla wrote:Found the Live Reaction interesting -- though I share the concerns of Thoughtsonfootball and others, that it should not be overused. It could get old fast, otherwise. For instance, the Cheating Frenchman incident was just below what I'd personally consider significant enough to warrant such coverage; even though I did enjoy it.
Most importantly, encourage the [writers/moderators/chairmen -- whatever one should call them] of such discussions to be ruthless with the material to be included, and to keep up the banter. They're usually reasonable at it, but Thursday's was particularly well done. Thanks.
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Comment number 24.
At 26th Nov 2009, bluewozza wrote:It's good to hear from you Lewis.
It's understandable that with finite resources you simply aren't going to be able to cover absolutely everything, everybody wants, but there is an insatiable appetite for European football that a lonely blog and/or the odd pics from the biggest of all derbies will satisfy. It would be good for a directory to quality webpages. While the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ can't do everything, a one-stop shop is still something to aspire to, even if that includes links elsewhere.
In terms of the football league this site is a bit of a let down. As is the Football League show in honesty, but you have no control over that I know. However I'd say that it probably has a lot lot more followers than the football league. Coverage of matches is patchy, a few sentences on each game isn't really enough.
Again, perhaps you could identify some suitable websites/blogs out there on the rest of the web. People come to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sport site because it is a quality site, it's one of the key arguments I use against those who are anti-Beeb, you can't take the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News/Sport site away! If you can't cover everything, find someone who does!
I love the football Gossip Column too, sadly addicted, I check it most mornings, but find it particularly frustrated if its 8 O'Clock and still not been updated since the previous day, or more gets rammed in during the middle of the day. Can you shed any light on this? It'd be decent to have a complete version in the morning, and any additional bits of gossip that come to light during the day posted at the top, separately - for it's annoying to find some more has been sneakily added in the middle!
Just another wish-list. I love Phil Jupitus' football column in 'The Times'' 'the game magazine,' if you get the chance to nab him to put a few words on here that would be amazing but I know that's just a fantasy!
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Comment number 25.
At 26th Nov 2009, redandblackT-Save 606 wrote:Good blog!Just a little question.Is there going to be a live text for the ACON in January?I've asked Stevo and Cheese!The first didnt bother to reply while the latter offered apologies on behalf of her dozy colleague and mentioned there where tentative plans for the latter stages.Probably!So Mr Wiltshere will there be a live text or not?The last one a couple of years ago(Thanks to Bevo and Fletch)was a rousing success so i hope we get another.thanks!
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Comment number 26.
At 26th Nov 2009, Lewis Wiltshire wrote:3bikeSteve - it is a good suggestion. I will have a think about it. The trouble is that in a World Cup and Winter Olympics year, and in a non-Ashes year, cricket is going to struggle to compete for the time of our developers in terms of building something new. Maybe it's just a simple thing that our live text commentators can mention every now and again, and then include in match reports?
Phantomgorilla - I'll pass on your kind words to Sam Lyon, who did that particular text commentary last Thursday. Thank you.
Bluewozza - I'd be really interested to know a bit more detail about how we've been a letdown on this site for the Football League. Could you outline a bit more about what you mean? What more/less would you have wanted? And in terms of the Gossip column, the way you outline it is exactly the way it's supposed to work, ie that the team get the initial version up as soon as possible (usually significantly before 8am, I would think?!) and then add throughout the day to the "breaking" section at the top. If they are adding to the middle, I can only imagine that would be to occasionally clarify something which has actually changed. As for Phil Jupitus, if you enjoy him in The Times, I recommend you keep buying The Times! I don't think there's any need to poach him for this website, and well done to them for snapping him up.
redandblack - we will be carrying live text commentaries on the first game, both semi-finals and the final. The semi-finals and the final will also be on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ TV. Happy to have clarified that, and if you want any more details, please do let me know.
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Comment number 27.
At 26th Nov 2009, hackerjack wrote:I do very much like the live text idea for stories of real significance that are liekly to develop during the day/days ahead.
However the Henry handball was a good example of when it would be completely over the top to use such a service. Look at the reality of the situation here. It happenned, there was a flurry of reaction in the morning press/phone ins etc. After that any further news/developments that were not simply either regurgitation or fan comments was very unlikely.
Sport rarely generates news items important enough for this kind of thing outside of the live action.
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Comment number 28.
At 26th Nov 2009, FFMexpat wrote:Lewis, generally I love the scope and depth of the sports coverage. But the thing that really winds me up is to see different headlines during the day or week for what is essentially the same story, with nothing more than a couple of new sentences added. To be fair to the sports website, this is a fault of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ website generally. If there is a genuine new development then by all means create a new article, but I waste a lot of my time checking out stuff that looks new but isn't.
On a more positive note, it was great to see the coverage of Robert Enke in such depth on a british site. I live in Germany, so expected it to get the full monty, but I think the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ did a good job in their coverage as well.
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Comment number 29.
At 27th Nov 2009, 3bikeSteve wrote:Lewis - regarding Cricket and the Over information, a quick and simple change would be to alter the Main Scorecard in the "Fall of wicket" section ie
Fall of wicket (Over)
107 (19) Gm Smith
201 (32) Amla
217 (36) Duminy
312 (46) de Villiers
349 (50) Boucher
354 (50) McLaren
Just add in the Overs bowled at the Fall of each wicket
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Comment number 30.
At 29th Nov 2009, FoxesofNuneaton wrote:Hellow Lewis, I have a bit of an annoyance with the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's Football League Games.
When the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ won the rights, the then-Sports Editor Roger Mosey said that he would try and get each team covered in the games (despite only 10 games being won for live coverage).
However, Newcastle got the 1st game alongside West Brom in August, THEY then got the Ipswich Match in September..and I hoped that it would be the last of Newcastle...oh no, it has not, they are back on in December against Middlesbrough.
I think this is a disgrace, Newcastle have been on twice and now for a3rd time is ridculous.
We have had nearly all of Newcastle's games picked up for Sky and can the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ be reminded that we all dont support Newcastle, we all support the other 23 clubs.
Sp why choose Newcastle all the time?
Other clubs are missing out on TV Cash so you and Sky can cover the costs of Newcastle's relegation!
Pathetic!!!!!!!!!!!
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At 29th Nov 2009, Paul Powner wrote:Complain about this comment (Comment number 31)
Comment number 32.
At 29th Nov 2009, Paul Powner wrote:Not sure if this is the right place to make this comment but couldn't see a better place
Gary Lineker doesn't have the best of reputations amongst football fans in spite of hosting a good programme
Lineker didn't help himself at the end of Match of the Day with his 'throw away' comments on the Blackburn v Stoke game. I can understand the match being left to the end of the programme as there were no goals to show. However most unbiased comments on the game will have it down as an entertaining game. For the Stoke fans this was our best performance in 18mths in the Premier League where we created many chances fo an away team
For Lineker to describe the match as poor and boring suggest to me that he hadn't seen the game. In that situation a GOOD commentator would have kept his comments nuetral. Nuff said!
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Comment number 33.
At 30th Nov 2009, Sport blog hosts - wrote:Apologies to Lewis and readers, for the delay in processing the latest comments, won't happen again!
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At 30th Nov 2009, Lewis Wiltshire wrote:I have no editorial control over television content or presenters, so I can't really answer some of the questions here. I am the editor of the website, and whilst I work very closely with my colleagues in TV Sport, I don't think it is my place to answer questions about their output, but I will make them aware of some of these comments, so thanks.
What I will do is answer FFMexPat's question, and then we'll close this conversation, which I've enjoyed. I promise to return soon for another Q&A about the site. So, in terms of stories that get updated through the day, I really don't think you would want us to constantly write a new story everytime things move on a little bit, surely? If a story has totally changed, we would either write a whole new article, or completely re-write the initial one, but if things have changed just a bit, the best approach really is to tweak the existing page. If you don't do that, your options are to ignore the new information, or write a totally new story even though it would not be radically different to the last one.
I think this is less of an editorial issue, and more an issue of how news is presented. There is talk inside the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ of whether we would ever choose to present the news in a format more chronological than editorial. So you would just see every new thing that gets written, regardless of whether it is more important or less important than the story which precedes it. But I think at this stage, that would be a niche service compared to the existing format, so unfortunately that means you may be stuck with our pages which update with the latest information, for a while yet.
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