NDM weekly stories

 When fiction becomes fact: can we trust the internet?

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/dec/15/fact-and-fiction-trust-and-internet

Summary of the story : This article talks about how buzzfeed been publishing fiction stories and turning them into facts. - a story written by a reality TV producer then reported as fact by an international media company  and shared frantically by those who think it's real. Because if it hadn't been real – if, unlike the alleged non-magic of the alleged non-magician, it had advertised itself as fiction – nobody would have clicked even once. It would have fallen off the bottom of the internet within a day.

BuzzFeed is a lot of things. It's a gallery of grinning dogs. It's a thousand comedy lists about the 90s. It's a scrolling advert, a comic sports site, a politics blog, a moving newspaper, and its ad revenues this year are estimated to be $40m.

key information or statistic:

• BuzzFeed’s post got almost 1.5m views
• Its advert revenues this year are estimated to be $40m

My view on the story: We don't expect every story posted by a stranger on Twitter to be true, but we do expect every story reported on by a huge media organisation to be, because that's what they're for.

Mail Online passes 10m daily browsers

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/12/mail-online-daily-users-traffic-abcs#start-of-comments

Summery of the Story: The digital juggernaut is yet to see a significant slowing in traffic growth, with more than 168 million monthly unique browsers in November after hitting 150 million for the first time in October, according to latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures for national newspaper websites published on Thursday.

Key information or statistic:

• 168 million monthly unique browsers in November
• 10 million daily average unique browsers for the first time in November.
• Daily browser numbers grew 8.29% compared to October, with monthly user numbers up 9.2%.
• The figure is more than 50% of Independent.co.uk's total monthly unique browsers in October

My view on the story: This has gone up significantly since the introduction of The Sumand the telegraph  paywall. Although a fair number of Telegraph users have migrated over to the Guardian