主播大秀

Hi, I鈥檓 Matt Shearer, Innovation Manager for 主播大秀 News Labs.

On Thursday & Friday last week (17th & 18th October 2013) we held the , a 鈥淗ackathon鈥� format event in Shoreditch Town Hall, London.

This was a 主播大秀 Connected Studios powered event as part of the聽programme.

The event saw 150 people, participating in teams, from these organisations:

主播大秀, The Times, Financial Times, Independent, LondonLive, The Guardian, The Mirror, SKY News., Mozilla, Dennis Publishing, Lancaster University, University College London, Sheffield University, Swansea University, Newcastle University, Dundee University, plus some individual R&D participants.

These teams completed 26 hacks (prototypes), and there were winners in 7 categories, judged by an independent panel.

The Winners:

1) Best in Show Award

Presented by (Head of News & Weather Products, 主播大秀)

Awarded to: The Perspectivator (Financial Times).

2) Best Live & Breaking News Experience

Presented by Nic Newman (Independent Strategist, Trainer, and Product Tank Lead)

Awarded to: 鈥淐onnected Storylines鈥� by The Grads (主播大秀)

3) Best University Hack

Presented by Christina Scott (CIO, FT)

Awarded to: 鈥淣ews Drop鈥� by Culture Labs (Newcastle University).

4) Best Visual News Experience that Scales

Presented by Jon Paolo (Head of Editorial at SKY NEWS ONLINE)

Awarded to: 鈥淪toryline鈥� by The LatLongs (主播大秀 Location Services)

5) Best Hack that's likely to never be launched

Presented by Peter Rippon (Editor of the 主播大秀 Online Archive)

Awarded to: 鈥淩ubix News鈥� by 鈥�3 mins 16 secs鈥� (The Mirror).

6) Hack that surprised us most

Presented by Anthony Sullivan (Head of Product, The Guardian)

Awarded to: 鈥淭alk News鈥� by SKY News team (SKY)

7) Best Journalism Tool

Presented by Jon Paolo

Awarded to: 鈥淲estminster Watchdog鈥� by The Times (Times Digital)

Links to these hacks (for as many as is possible), plus videos from the event will be published on聽(see bottom of post) in coming weeks.

In Summary

We will be publishing more detail on key areas of the event and next steps in coming weeks, and until then here are some key points in brief.

There was a broad and interesting spectrum of 鈥淗acks鈥�:

The 鈥淗acks鈥�, or 鈥減rototypes鈥�, ranged from 鈥淭alk News鈥� a natural language speech-driven news reading prototype (from SKY team), through 2nd screen and Journalist research tools (Sheffield, 主播大秀 et al), Social gamification apps (The Times) and novel CMS approaches (主播大秀), right through to 鈥淩ubix News鈥� (Mirror) an innovative navigation paradigm and the 鈥淧erspectivator鈥� (FT) to help numbers make sense to news audiences.

The format was Rapid Prototyping with Multidiscipline teams:

We saw some great rapid iterations on ideas with small, multidiscipline teams. Each team had a chance to test their ideas in audience testing on the Thursday afternoon to get some real insight. Another key element was that teams used real data sources, rather than mocked up data.

Collaboration across the News Industry:

The teams were from a broad range of News Orgs, and while they were competing for the awards, there was a great deal of collaboration, sharing and discussion between the teams from all organisations.

Great feedback for 主播大秀 R&D APIs

80% of the participating teams used the 主播大秀 鈥� APIs which we had prepared for the event, featuring 100s of thousands of linked data -tagged News content items including, real time new News content. We are taking feedback for how to improve these APIs for future News Industry R&D activities, and for future innovation events.

Linked Data innovation:

Of the teams that used the 主播大秀 Juicer APIs, about half used the brand new 鈥淪toryline鈥� APIs. Their feedback is already giving us some clear next steps on the Storyline iteration, both editorially and technologically, which will help improve the utility of the open model 鈥淪toryline鈥�.

News industry partnerships:

主播大秀 News Labs are following up with the participating News organisations and Universities on how we can innovate further, together, with open technology and News data exploration.

An Exciting spread of Engineering:

As well as lots of software engineering taking place, we also had teams working on physical kit that they brought into #newsHACK with them; servers, handsets, and an interesting array of LEDs, sensors, projectors and more!

This is our Open Innovation Blueprint:

We believe that when you form a multidiscipline team* in a creative environment, give them problems to solve, provide audience testing & data science support, then you will be making the best use of the team鈥檚 talents. Do this with 30 teams at once, taken from across the industry and academia, then we have a real innovation hot house; collaboration, sharing, problem-solving, innovation, and all of this at an incredible pace - the savings on lagtime between disciplines, and on time invested in untested/erroneous ideas alone is massive - try quickly, build with real data, then fail or succeed quickly.

Promoting and driving this kind of open innovation is how 主播大秀 Connected Studios powers and supports the 主播大秀 News Labs programme.

If you want to find out more about these projects as they develop please follow 主播大秀 News Labs on the following channels:

主播大秀 News Labs

主播大秀 News Labs on

主播大秀 News Labs on

* A 鈥淢ulti-discipline team鈥� in this scenario should cover these capabilities: Editorial/Journalist, developer, product design, design, BA, data modelling/architecture. We were recommending teams of 3-5, but up to 7 seems OK.

Matt Shearer is Innovation Manager, 主播大秀 News Labs