How are the news or spiritual people against soulless machines
Every day, almost 11 million people (TNS Gallup Media, ADR, October 2011 - here and below) visit the main page of Runet’s largest portal, Mail.Ru. More than two million of them click on news headlines. But almost none of them think about where they come from. I want to tell you about the news "kitchen" of our project " News ". Make yourself comfortable in your office or home office chairs. We can make them fidget ;-)
"It is better to make news than to talk about them"
Winston Churchill
')
Latest news is an integral part of any online portal type project. Most are limited to the general information picture of the day, someone moves deeper, providing a selection of even very narrowly thematic news, say, about smoking or Lada cars .
Three important principles of portal news:
Thus, all portals are the so-called news aggregators. What does this mean? There are two typical schemes for working with news.
The first scheme: "teaser" aggregation. The portal receives from its partners news headlines and announcements, which are grouped into stories by topic. The user when viewing a certain news gets to the partner site. [Yandex, Google]
Scheme two: full-text aggregation. The portal receives from partners the full text of the news or article, and the end user reads it on the side of the portal [Mail.Ru, Rambler]. Partial combinations of these schemes are also possible, but with a bias in one or another model, so I do not single them out separately.
The partners of the portals are various media (central, regional, specialized, etc.), news agencies, television channels, radio stations.
Despite the seemingly noticeable difference in the schemes, as our research shows, users often do not even think about it. There is a simple model of behavior: the entry point (portal) and the exit point where the essence of the headline that attracted the user will be revealed (believe me, with the obvious difference for us now, the ordinary user does not always quickly explain how the news differs, say, Yandex from Mail. Ru). The concept of a media brand as such is increasingly blurred. But this is another story, but for now let us return to the main point.
I will dwell in more detail on the structure of News@Mail.Ru , which works according to the full-text aggregation model.
So, for news to appear on the portal from somewhere, you need primary content, i.e. we need media partners who are professionally engaged in its production. The ways of initial contact with them are variable: we come to someone ourselves, someone comes to us.
Each potential partner passes an editorial review on the quality of the content and the need to include it in the pool of sources (unfortunately, the manual model has one drawback - we are not able to process an unlimited number of partner tapes). Further, an agreement is concluded, in accordance with which the partner is offered certain conditions, according to which, in exchange for his, of course, valuable content, he receives traffic from our site, which is no less valuable - targeted. Those. the schemes used by the portals from the point of view of the partner do not essentially differ.
Someone may argue that the "teaser" model forces the user to follow the news to the original source site and monetize it all at once. However, we should not forget that the partner / source also simply will receive his visitors in our model, but in a different way, to other news that will be presented right there, under the text of his material. And it will be thoughtful clicks loyal to its user headlines.
We do not deceive the user's expectations: he read the news, in the place that was expected for him, he did not switch to a project in an alien design, where time is needed for getting used to the features of the layout of the material, callouts, type and size of the font used and so on Further. He read the really good news worthy of the main page of the portal, which was chosen, read and selected by spiritual people, not soulless machines, for whom the style of presentation of the material is not important, for example, but only compliance with certain rules and matrices is important.
How to determine how many sources are necessary for the normal operation of news on the portal? How to choose them? By normal work, in this context, I mean the full satisfaction of the information hunger of the absolute majority of visitors.
To begin with, it is obvious that each of the sources (even the minimum set!) Should work according to the three most important rules of the esteemed media: to be operational, reliable and objective. The program includes at least 1-2 large news agencies that provide informational channels online and several major media outlets that give a story in development with the necessary analytical implications. To complete the picture should the media offering video content and photobanks.
Immediately, I note that there is no formula that allows you to calculate the required number of counterparties, but it is clear that their number should completely close the information picture of the day at the federal level in Russia and in the world. For reference, I will provide information about our partners.
Federal tape: about 30 sources.
Regional tape: more than 50 sources in 17 regions.
So, we have the necessary pool of sources that can close the information picture of the day in due amount. Let's draw the stages of news processing from the moment of its publication on the original source site before getting to the main page of the Mail.Ru portal.
"Headers double the size of events"
John galsworthy
In normal mode, once every 15 minutes, the loader bypasses the XML export of partners and loads a pool of news materials into the back office. In the case of breaking news, the manual edition may launch the bootloader more often in order for the news to be promptly processed. From the pool of downloaded news there is a selection of materials for publication: which news from which source will be processed in the next stage.
Here I want to emphasize separately the two main differences between the editorial board and the matrix: efficiency and flexibility. The decision on the removal of a news on the main page is made instantly, the delay for issuing its audience is the technical units of minutes. Decisions on the creation of a thematic line (plot), requests to photo agencies, news hosting sites, local resources, etc. are also quickly made.
After the initial processing of the news flow and the selection of the necessary news for publication, the task of the editorial office is to wrap each processed news in its own "candy wrapper". It is multi-layered and includes: correction of the title (if necessary and possible, for example, its reduction); tagging and dividing by category (to ensure the most accurate selection of similar news or news on the topic); binding news to the plot; institution and / or linking of photo galleries, infographics, video materials on the topic of news. Thus, even a dry fact about the accomplished event can be served with an interesting multimedia “body kit” for the user. During the day, the editors process and republish, on average, about 2,000 news items.
The most important function of the editorial board is the permanent management of top news items, placing news on certain positions (for example, the portal's main page), tracking the audience using the analytical tools: news CTR, “readability” (number of views) of materials and so on.
The editorial group makes decisions about the necessary rotation of news on special places on the portal (filling informers) in order of importance and relevance. The editors carefully follow the comments to the articles on the main positions, controls the user feedback for possible spelling errors.
Many publications, it seems, like to save on proofreaders, it’s doubly problematic for us to deduct really large amounts of pass-through information on our own, so the first attentive readers of the news help follow-ups not to miss missed blunders.
Separately, it is worth noting the peculiarity of work in the regions. Currently, we provide localized content to users in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Estonia, Kyrgyzstan and 17 regions of Russia (from St. Petersburg to the Khabarovsk Territory).
Our Ukrainian office works with neighboring countries, federal tapes are filled from both Moscow and local offices of the company. The publishing editors in the regions of the Russian Federation and foreign countries know the local specifics of the information field, the expectations and interests of the audience. They are in contact with local media and form a specific (by time and place) picture of the day for the region.
“The real news is bad news”
Marshall McLuhan
The project is hosted on 6 servers, ensuring uninterrupted work and processing of visitors' requests, even in the case of global breaking news. Our local record is a confident supply of 46,000 calls per minute (Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton). Unfortunately, such records occur, as a rule, for some sad events, so I will not call them. However, this is important to note, because, unfortunately, many of our colleagues in the workshop cannot withstand even a sharp two-fold increase in load, which should be provided by the owners of media sites by default. So we have to think about the guy whose visitors in similar situations run for details to us.
Our glorious editorial staff works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. There is only one day in a year when not a single person is left in the editorial office for several hours. And this is not New Year :)! When and why this happens - fantasize yourself. To maintain the intrigue, I note that during these hours we continue to monitor the information flow practically in field conditions, on the knee and with the help of the good old GPRS modem;)
Replaceable editors (in 24 * 7 mode), daytime, issuing editor, bild editor, moderators and content supervisor work on news flow processing ... And our editor-in-chief Yevgeny Vinogradov runs the show (24 * 7 * 365 - always in touch) . The schedules are distributed in such a way that on weekdays, in prime time, there are at least three people in a shift at the same time, on weekends and holidays, at night - at least one. This allows on-line quality and timely fill the information tape.
Who are these wonderful people? The average age of the editorial board is 25-35 years. In addition to news, the range of interests and hobbies of children is very wide: someone plays basketball, someone enjoys cooking, dancing, music ... The most important factor that applies to all employees is that they are universal: in the wording, full interchangeability. In a relatively quiet time for the country and the world, when the big monitors of the Moscow edition do not broadcast a CNN, BBC or Russia-24 television picture from a satellite, we watch football with pleasure together with our colleagues from the Sport project :-)
An interesting historical fact - when I joined the company in 2005, I worked on the News project ... one remote editor and 1/5 of the manager of the content project group. But what to say, maybe someone remembers that the main Mail.Ru had headlines that led to quite certain media ... but this has already sunk into oblivion.
Now the editorial office employs more than 20 people. 11 people are in the federal editorial office, 5 are engaged in the localization of the regions of the Russian Federation, and another 7 are in the near abroad. At the same time, they all sit in different offices of the Mail.Ru Group in order to ensure a high-quality and timely update of the information picture of the day: from Khabarovsk to Kiev.
Mail.Ru Agent and especially the conference service in it is an indispensable and indispensable assistant in our communication. Without them, it would be very difficult to erase the boundaries of the distances and ensure prompt interaction.
Finally, you can not do without a beautiful schedule of the project’s attendance history, where without it:
Well, a well-known aphorism will become an excellent conclusion to our article: “News is a thing that has long been known, only happening every time with new people.” I sincerely wish each of the readers not to become our newsmaker. Be our dear guest, that's enough :-)!
Rozhkov Anatoly,
Director of Media Projects Mail.Ru
"It is better to make news than to talk about them"
Winston Churchill
')
Latest news is an integral part of any online portal type project. Most are limited to the general information picture of the day, someone moves deeper, providing a selection of even very narrowly thematic news, say, about smoking or Lada cars .
Three important principles of portal news:
- The first. Portals do not write the news themselves and formally, often, are not the media.
- The second. Yes, you read everything correctly in the line above. None of the largest portals of Runet has a writing edition.
- Third. All news portals, one way or another, borrow.
Thus, all portals are the so-called news aggregators. What does this mean? There are two typical schemes for working with news.
The first scheme: "teaser" aggregation. The portal receives from its partners news headlines and announcements, which are grouped into stories by topic. The user when viewing a certain news gets to the partner site. [Yandex, Google]
Scheme two: full-text aggregation. The portal receives from partners the full text of the news or article, and the end user reads it on the side of the portal [Mail.Ru, Rambler]. Partial combinations of these schemes are also possible, but with a bias in one or another model, so I do not single them out separately.
The partners of the portals are various media (central, regional, specialized, etc.), news agencies, television channels, radio stations.
Despite the seemingly noticeable difference in the schemes, as our research shows, users often do not even think about it. There is a simple model of behavior: the entry point (portal) and the exit point where the essence of the headline that attracted the user will be revealed (believe me, with the obvious difference for us now, the ordinary user does not always quickly explain how the news differs, say, Yandex from Mail. Ru). The concept of a media brand as such is increasingly blurred. But this is another story, but for now let us return to the main point.
I will dwell in more detail on the structure of News@Mail.Ru , which works according to the full-text aggregation model.
How it works?
So, for news to appear on the portal from somewhere, you need primary content, i.e. we need media partners who are professionally engaged in its production. The ways of initial contact with them are variable: we come to someone ourselves, someone comes to us.
Each potential partner passes an editorial review on the quality of the content and the need to include it in the pool of sources (unfortunately, the manual model has one drawback - we are not able to process an unlimited number of partner tapes). Further, an agreement is concluded, in accordance with which the partner is offered certain conditions, according to which, in exchange for his, of course, valuable content, he receives traffic from our site, which is no less valuable - targeted. Those. the schemes used by the portals from the point of view of the partner do not essentially differ.
Someone may argue that the "teaser" model forces the user to follow the news to the original source site and monetize it all at once. However, we should not forget that the partner / source also simply will receive his visitors in our model, but in a different way, to other news that will be presented right there, under the text of his material. And it will be thoughtful clicks loyal to its user headlines.
We do not deceive the user's expectations: he read the news, in the place that was expected for him, he did not switch to a project in an alien design, where time is needed for getting used to the features of the layout of the material, callouts, type and size of the font used and so on Further. He read the really good news worthy of the main page of the portal, which was chosen, read and selected by spiritual people, not soulless machines, for whom the style of presentation of the material is not important, for example, but only compliance with certain rules and matrices is important.
How to determine how many sources are necessary for the normal operation of news on the portal? How to choose them? By normal work, in this context, I mean the full satisfaction of the information hunger of the absolute majority of visitors.
To begin with, it is obvious that each of the sources (even the minimum set!) Should work according to the three most important rules of the esteemed media: to be operational, reliable and objective. The program includes at least 1-2 large news agencies that provide informational channels online and several major media outlets that give a story in development with the necessary analytical implications. To complete the picture should the media offering video content and photobanks.
Immediately, I note that there is no formula that allows you to calculate the required number of counterparties, but it is clear that their number should completely close the information picture of the day at the federal level in Russia and in the world. For reference, I will provide information about our partners.
Federal tape: about 30 sources.
Regional tape: more than 50 sources in 17 regions.
So, we have the necessary pool of sources that can close the information picture of the day in due amount. Let's draw the stages of news processing from the moment of its publication on the original source site before getting to the main page of the Mail.Ru portal.
"Headers double the size of events"
John galsworthy
In normal mode, once every 15 minutes, the loader bypasses the XML export of partners and loads a pool of news materials into the back office. In the case of breaking news, the manual edition may launch the bootloader more often in order for the news to be promptly processed. From the pool of downloaded news there is a selection of materials for publication: which news from which source will be processed in the next stage.
Revision vs. matrix
Here I want to emphasize separately the two main differences between the editorial board and the matrix: efficiency and flexibility. The decision on the removal of a news on the main page is made instantly, the delay for issuing its audience is the technical units of minutes. Decisions on the creation of a thematic line (plot), requests to photo agencies, news hosting sites, local resources, etc. are also quickly made.
"Wrap!"
After the initial processing of the news flow and the selection of the necessary news for publication, the task of the editorial office is to wrap each processed news in its own "candy wrapper". It is multi-layered and includes: correction of the title (if necessary and possible, for example, its reduction); tagging and dividing by category (to ensure the most accurate selection of similar news or news on the topic); binding news to the plot; institution and / or linking of photo galleries, infographics, video materials on the topic of news. Thus, even a dry fact about the accomplished event can be served with an interesting multimedia “body kit” for the user. During the day, the editors process and republish, on average, about 2,000 news items.
The most important function of the editorial board is the permanent management of top news items, placing news on certain positions (for example, the portal's main page), tracking the audience using the analytical tools: news CTR, “readability” (number of views) of materials and so on.
The editorial group makes decisions about the necessary rotation of news on special places on the portal (filling informers) in order of importance and relevance. The editors carefully follow the comments to the articles on the main positions, controls the user feedback for possible spelling errors.
Many publications, it seems, like to save on proofreaders, it’s doubly problematic for us to deduct really large amounts of pass-through information on our own, so the first attentive readers of the news help follow-ups not to miss missed blunders.
In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - midnight!
Separately, it is worth noting the peculiarity of work in the regions. Currently, we provide localized content to users in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Estonia, Kyrgyzstan and 17 regions of Russia (from St. Petersburg to the Khabarovsk Territory).
Our Ukrainian office works with neighboring countries, federal tapes are filled from both Moscow and local offices of the company. The publishing editors in the regions of the Russian Federation and foreign countries know the local specifics of the information field, the expectations and interests of the audience. They are in contact with local media and form a specific (by time and place) picture of the day for the region.
“The real news is bad news”
Marshall McLuhan
Technical details
The project is hosted on 6 servers, ensuring uninterrupted work and processing of visitors' requests, even in the case of global breaking news. Our local record is a confident supply of 46,000 calls per minute (Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton). Unfortunately, such records occur, as a rule, for some sad events, so I will not call them. However, this is important to note, because, unfortunately, many of our colleagues in the workshop cannot withstand even a sharp two-fold increase in load, which should be provided by the owners of media sites by default. So we have to think about the guy whose visitors in similar situations run for details to us.
“No news is good news”
Our glorious editorial staff works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. There is only one day in a year when not a single person is left in the editorial office for several hours. And this is not New Year :)! When and why this happens - fantasize yourself. To maintain the intrigue, I note that during these hours we continue to monitor the information flow practically in field conditions, on the knee and with the help of the good old GPRS modem;)
Replaceable editors (in 24 * 7 mode), daytime, issuing editor, bild editor, moderators and content supervisor work on news flow processing ... And our editor-in-chief Yevgeny Vinogradov runs the show (24 * 7 * 365 - always in touch) . The schedules are distributed in such a way that on weekdays, in prime time, there are at least three people in a shift at the same time, on weekends and holidays, at night - at least one. This allows on-line quality and timely fill the information tape.
Who are these wonderful people? The average age of the editorial board is 25-35 years. In addition to news, the range of interests and hobbies of children is very wide: someone plays basketball, someone enjoys cooking, dancing, music ... The most important factor that applies to all employees is that they are universal: in the wording, full interchangeability. In a relatively quiet time for the country and the world, when the big monitors of the Moscow edition do not broadcast a CNN, BBC or Russia-24 television picture from a satellite, we watch football with pleasure together with our colleagues from the Sport project :-)
An interesting historical fact - when I joined the company in 2005, I worked on the News project ... one remote editor and 1/5 of the manager of the content project group. But what to say, maybe someone remembers that the main Mail.Ru had headlines that led to quite certain media ... but this has already sunk into oblivion.
Now the editorial office employs more than 20 people. 11 people are in the federal editorial office, 5 are engaged in the localization of the regions of the Russian Federation, and another 7 are in the near abroad. At the same time, they all sit in different offices of the Mail.Ru Group in order to ensure a high-quality and timely update of the information picture of the day: from Khabarovsk to Kiev.
Mail.Ru Agent and especially the conference service in it is an indispensable and indispensable assistant in our communication. Without them, it would be very difficult to erase the boundaries of the distances and ensure prompt interaction.
Finally, you can not do without a beautiful schedule of the project’s attendance history, where without it:
Well, a well-known aphorism will become an excellent conclusion to our article: “News is a thing that has long been known, only happening every time with new people.” I sincerely wish each of the readers not to become our newsmaker. Be our dear guest, that's enough :-)!
Rozhkov Anatoly,
Director of Media Projects Mail.Ru
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/133519/
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