UK Newspapers & Social Bookmarking

UK NEWSPAPERS & SOCIAL BOOKMARKING A Snapshot

AIMS OF THE STUDY
To gather and present data on the share options displayed by online newspapers in the UK.
To find out which social bookmarking services are proving most popular at present.
To uncover any bookmarking differences between national and regional sites.

SOCIAL BOOKMARKING:
“ The ability to save and categorise a
personal collection of bookmarks...
Discovery Education

... and share them with others.” tvb.org

Mail Online Tindle Newspapers guardian.co.uk

The Sample: 34 UK Websites
15 National Daily Newspaper Websites
From abc.org *
19 Regional Newspaper Group Websites
From Newspaper Society list of 20 largest publishers**
* Except The People – no share options
**Except DC Thomson & Co – no share options
Data Gathered - 27 to 31 Oct 2008

The Results

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
Five social bookmarking sites are each included as share options on the majority of the websites. They are:
Digg , Delicious , Reddit , Facebook and StumbleUpon .
Of those, Digg and Delicious links feature on all but two sites.
The highest number of share options on one site is 39 – via the Add This bookmarking plug-in.
The lowest number of share icons on a site is one.

TEN MOST COMMON SHARE OPTIONS
Percentage of total websites featuring bookmark icon:
85.3% 70.6% 26.5% 20.6% 94.1% Digg Reddit StumbleUpon Fark Google Bookmarks 82.4% 41.2% 26.5% 94.1% Delicious Facebook NewsVine Yahoo! My Web Technorati 17.6%

The standard Add This button offers links to 39 bookmarking sites. Used by: dailysport.co.uk express.co.uk Mirror.co.uk Add This

TOP 10

OVERVIEW:
Total Number of 291*
Share Options
Average per Website 8.6
Median 5
Mode 5
*Including each Add This as 39 options.

The Nationals

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS - NATIONALS
All the nationals feature the Delicious icon, almost all link to Digg , and over 70% include Reddit and Facebook options.
Compared to regionals, they have a greater spread of share options with seven bookmarks featuring on at least 40% of websites.
They have a higher average (12.5) due to the inclusion of Add This , but if each Add This counted as one option it would be less than half of that value.
Plus, almost two-thirds of the icons would be accounted for by the Big Five ( Delicious , Digg , Reddit , Facebook and StumbleUpon ).

Average 12.5 Median 6 Mode 4 Average 4.9 (Add This as One Button)

NATIONALS - TOP TEN

*With Add This classed as one button Nationals - Percentage Split Per Social Bookmark Total Share Buttons - 74*

The Regionals

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS - REGIONALS
For the most part, each regional newspaper group includes share options within the template of its websites – so different titles from the same publisher have identical bookmarking buttons.
The Big Five are more popular among the regionals and there is a large gap between them and the sixth most common share option, NewsVine .
Plus, over 80% of their total share links go to those five social media sites.

Newsquest

Average 5.4 Median 5 Mode 5 * Results taken from newest template. **Results taken from Norwich Evening News/Eastern Daily Press options.

Regionals - Percentage Split Per Social Bookmark Total Share Buttons - 103

National – Regional Comparison

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS NATIONAL-REGIONAL DIFFERENCES
Fark , NewsVine , Yahoo! My Web and Google Bookmarks are among the share options more commonly used by national sites than by regionals.
MySpace and NowPublic links feature on several national sites but are not used at all by the regionals.
Facebook and StumbleUpon are more popular among the regionals by a significant margin.

National – Regional Comparison Biggest Percentage Differences FARK NEWSVINE MYSPACE NOWPUBLIC YAHOO! MY WEB Nationals + 36.2% Nationals + 33.7% Nationals + 33.3% Nationals + 26.7% Nationals + 24.2%

GOOGLE BOOKMARKS ADD THIS STUMBLEUPON FACEBOOK FURL WINDOWS LIVE Nationals + 22.8% Nationals + 20.0% Regionals + 18.9% Regionals + 16.2% Nationals + 14.7% Nationals + 14.7%

More on Social Bookmarking: JP Digital Digest Blog Social Bookmarking I Definitions History Current Landscape Social Bookmarking II How it relates to journalism Pros and Cons

Louise Thomas Research Assistant to Prof. Jane Singer – JP Chair in Digital Journalism School of Journalism, Media & Communication University of Central Lancashire Blog: JP Digital Digest Email: [email_address] [email_address] Twitter: LouiseT Slideshare: LouiseT Room 263 Greenbank Building UCLAN Preston PR1 2HE 01772 894512

University of Central Lancashire

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UK Newspapers & Social Bookmarking

by Louise Thomas

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