Newsquest developing CMS to integrate liveblog function

Newsquest Media Group is developing a new content management system (CMS) interface which will use responsive design and offer its journalists new features such as the ability to quickly switch to a liveblogging article format.

The regional publisher is also developing an in-house iPhone app for its journalists to allow them to publish multimedia content directly into the new CMS.

According to head of online editorial development Nigel Vincent, the development of a new admin interface, which is using responsive design to address the multiplatform delivery of its content, will signal "a major change" for its journalists.

"This new interface is completely re-engineered and it's far simpler and far easier to use, faster to use, to upload content to the sites," he said.

The changes will allow reporters "to really focus on what they do most of the time which effectively is upload articles and enhance those articles as much as they can in terms of adding maps, adding Twitter feeds, ballots, and so on", he added.

He said the new interface also includes the ability for journalists to switch to a live article format.

"This is a format which very, very quickly gained traction with our audience. It's fun for our journalists to do and it's incredibly popular with our audience.

"We know that generally over the months, over the years, our top peak traffic days are ordinarily always the ones where we have a liveblog operating.

"We've taken a decision to integrate a liveblogging article operation within our admin, so it's going to be very easy for our journalists to switch to a live article as opposed to a standard article."

He said coverage of events such as the Olympic torch relay, the diamond jubilee and recently the local elections, "are the kind of core, key, local events that our audience really flock to our sites in droves to read".

It is hoped the CMS developments will encourage more Newsquest journalists to produce live coverage of such events in the future and also build on titles' interactions with audiences through the integration of tweets and other contributions from social media.

Newsquest has also developed an in-house iPhone app for its reporters to enable them to publish directly to the new CMS.

"So they see something at the scene, they can instantaneously publish something to their websites using this in-house app that's purely and exclusively for Newsquest journalists," Vincent added.

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