Sunday Observer Goes Collaborative

Having worked for a print publisher for two years and developed a negative impression of that industry (and journalists) when it comes to all things on line, imagine my surprise when I saw the Sunday Observer Blog this morning! I can honestly say that if I were in charge of a serious redesign of any newspaper’s online presence this would be it, and more.

I saw a link to it on BoingBoing: “The weekend paper is now supplemented by a daily blog, with podcasts and moblogs. The RSS is fulltext. Trackbacks and comments are on and unmoderated. Keywords are tracked and displayed in a “folksonomic zeitgeist.” Headlines from competing papers and Technorati link cosmoses are pulled in and displayed on the front page. No paywall. No adwall. No wall.”

This is definitely one for my bookmarks. Just as I’d given up any real hope of a significant dead tree publication doing it “right” – this happens! Well done The Observer! Now BBC – get your finger out and justify my license fee!