Announcing n0tice.org – the open journalism toolkit
Posted: May 22, 2012 Filed under: announcements, company 6 Comments »Today is an important day in the n0tice journey. We are opening up the platform for publishers, brands, communities and developers.
Visit n0tice.org, the open journalism toolkit:
It was always our intention to operate n0tice as a service, more like a utility than a destination. And this is the next piece of critical infrastructure needed to achieve that vision.
At n0tice.org you will find a new web site that explains how the platform can fuel open journalism projects.
The tools on offer enable a range of different capabilities for any type of media partner — from large publishing organisations to brands running engagement campaigns to local and special interest communities to media platform developers who need open APIs to build things. These are the same tools we use for n0tice.com and the soon-to-be-released iPhone app.
Among other things partners can now run their own crowdmapping projects, such as a short-term investigation requiring eyewitness accounts, a brand campaign looking to activate people on a journey, a community committed to surfacing important information openly, or a location-based app or integration with another geo platform. We’ve now done several crowdmapping projects at the Guardian since the n0tice.com web site launched several week ago.
Documentation, features and case studies are all available on n0tice.org.
With n0tice.com for users and n0tice.org for partners now both publicly available the n0tice service is only missing one thing — a native mobile app. But that will change very soon. Stay tuned for that announcement.
Meantime, spend a moment with n0tice.org and consider how it might help your business today.
Get involved in the Olympic torch relay
Posted: May 15, 2012 Filed under: announcements, company | Tags: guardian, london2012, plympic, relay, theguardian, torch Comments Off
n0tice.com is joining forces with our Guardian colleagues to help people get involved in the Olympic torch relay as it makes the 70-day, 8,000-mile relay around the four corners of Britain.
We’ve launched a dedicated noticeboard at http://torchroute.n0tice.com to make it easy to share stories and pictures when the relay is happening near you.
And the entries on the noticeboard will also be featured on The Guardian’s interactive map.
In addition, The Guardian has today launched a hunt for people help tell the story of your area and what the 2012 games means to your local community.
It says: “We’re looking for veritable pillars of the community, young or old, funny or serious (but we do like funny), to describe what it means to them to see the Olympic torch passing through their home town or village on its way to the London games of 2012.”
There’s more information and a form to nominate yourself, or someone you know, here.
BBC opportunity for n0tice.com users
Posted: May 10, 2012 Filed under: announcements | Tags: bbc, blogs, blossing, linking, links, local, n0tice, noticeboard 4 Comments »The BBC’s local news sites are looking at new ways to link to useful and interesting websites, blogs – and noticeboards.
N0tice users are being invited to share their noticeboard URLs if they would like to be considered for inclusion.
Having links from external sites like this not only improves search engine results but could also mean more people in your local area finding your content
Robin Morley, BBC social media lead for the English Regions, said they have always welcomed suggestions for good external links but they hadn’t been proactive enough in asking for them before:
“We’re always looking for the best local online resources to link to from our network of sites across England – so if you’ve a noticeboard which you think would fit the bill, please send the link to england@bbc.co.uk. Look forward to hearing from you.”
The BBC add external links because research and usage figures has shown that users value them for being carefully selected for their editorial value, without commercial influence. The corporation also has a remit to drive traffic to external websites, as explained here.
This initiative with the local sites is run through a different process to the one which automates links across the news sites. That process, handled by a system called Moreover, is detailed here.
The local linking activity came about following discussions with blogger Andy Mabbett and you can read more about the thinking behind it here.
On your bike with n0tice.com
Posted: May 9, 2012 Filed under: announcements, Features | Tags: bike, cycling, events, n0tice, noticeboards, rides Comments Off
If you’re into cycling, check out the dedicated section that our colleagues at Guardian Travel recently launched – ‘Britain’s best bike rides‘.
Here at n0tice.com, we teamed up with them to help produce this interactive map which means that, as well as being able to access the 40 routes produced in conjunction with experts Sustrans, you can also share any cycling events happening near you.
Click here to see the map – the official routes are marked in blue and the events in red.
To share your own cycling event, log into n0tice.com and visit he noticeboard at http://guardiancycling.n0tice.com and click ‘add a new event’.
Sharing n0tice activity on Facebook
Posted: May 1, 2012 Filed under: announcements, user-help | Tags: facebook, howto, sharing, social, social media 3 Comments »If you wish to amplify your activity on n0tice through your social networks you will enjoy using the new Facebook sharing app. It will only take a moment to activate it and begin spreading your posts virally.
You will find the activation button on your n0tice profile settings page. Look for the Social Networks tab:
You must connect n0tice with Facebook first. You’ll see a button to do that on the ‘Social Networks’ tab.
When you’ve activated the app, n0tice will post things you do on n0tice to your activity stream on Facebook. n0tice will automatically update your Facebook page when you follow people and noticeboards, star things you find interesting, or post reports, events or offers to n0tice. The app does not share passive actions to your Facebook page such as what you are reading on n0tice.com, only explicit actions that you trigger such as following, posting, reposting, and voting.
The n0tice app for Facebook will help spread things you are doing on n0tice further around the world and help others to discover what’s happening.
It’s a great way to spread the word about local issues and events that you care about. You may also find it’s useful for finding a buyer for something you’re trying to sell. And if you run a noticeboard you’ll find this app may help you develop a stronger community around it.
Give it a try. It’s really easy and surprisingly fun.
If you want to deactivate the n0tice app for Facebook you can change the privacy settings in Facebook, or you can turn it off completely via your settings page on n0tice.com. You will see be a big red button for deactivating the app in the Social Networks tab.
n0tice.com goes north
Posted: May 1, 2012 Filed under: announcements, company | Tags: events, listings, map, n0tice, northerner, noticeboard 1 Comment »
The Guardian’s Northerner blog is now sporting a new interactive events maps powered by n0tice.com. The blog, which I contribute to along with John Baron, Helen Carter, Northern editor Martin Wainwright and others, features news and information from across the north of England and the new map means that readers can easily share their events there too.
A noticeboard set up by the team and personalised in the style of the blog can be seen at northerner.n0tice.com. Any entries made there are then fed automatically into the map.
Martin said: “We’re supposed to talk to strangers in the north and smile at other passengers on buses and trains. Our Northerner n0ticeboard is an excellent extension of that. It’s easy to use to flag up events and has all those canny computer tricks of telling you about other things happening nearby, when you click on a particular entry. Please use it both ways: to tell the rest of the north what you’re doing, or interested in; and to find out what everyone else is up to.”
Happy Easter on n0tice with Guardian Travel
Posted: April 6, 2012 Filed under: announcements, Features, partnership | Tags: easter, easterweekend, events, guardiantravel, n0tice, travel Comments Off
Guardian Travel this morning launched an EasterWeekend noticeboard for readers to find and share the best events happening during the holiday break.
If you’re out and about over the Easter Weekend, one of the newest noticeboards at n0tice.com is there to provide some inspiration to help you find out what’s happening near you – www.easterweekend.n0tice.com.
It uses the n0tice.com events functionality and has been personalised using the official Guardian logo, branding and background.
The Travel website this morning offers it readers the chance to share tips and also picks out some of the trips and events already featured on the www.easterweekend.n0tice.com board.
The resulting tips are automatically fed back into the page on the Travel website which has been re-styled into the usual Guardian page style as you can see in the image on the left.
Whatever you do this weekend, we wish all our n0tice-ers a Happy Easter!
n0tice teams up with Destination Local
Posted: March 29, 2012 Filed under: announcements, partnership | Tags: destinationlocal, hyperlocal, local, n0tice, nesta Comments OffA £1 million programme is being announced today to “understand and stimulate the development of a UK hyperlocal media sector”.
It is being led by Nesta and the Technology Strategy Board and the n0tice.com team is very pleased to be a hyperlocal partner in what must be the biggest UK initiative of its kind to identify the technologies, business models, content opportunities and challenges in this space.
Find out more about the Destination Local project here.
Hello world! n0tice is open to all
Posted: March 20, 2012 Filed under: announcements | Tags: development, n0tice, noticeboard, openjournalism 2 Comments »
Here at n0tice.com we’re very excited to announce that today we are opening ourselves up to the world.
As well as launching some exciting new features, this version of n0tice.com no longer requires an invitation to join – all are welcome.
The n0tice team has accomplished a lot in the nine months since we started, and we are looking forward to announcing a series of major developments in the next few weeks including the release of the n0tice api, a Facebook app and the launch of an iPhone app.
But first, it’s the web site where we’re releasing some new features, these include;
- More social features such as ‘reposts’ which means n0tice-ers can curate other people’s posts, the ability to follow individual users or noticeboards and voting to help n0tice-ers surface the best content.
- Personalisation and customisation with a new ‘My Stream’ facility, an option to present the layout in a two column structure more like a magazine and for those people who get around a ‘saved locations’ function for easy flitting about.
- Infrastructure capabilities have been improved to support global growth and partnerships as n0tice.com moves into its next stage of development.
The new features add to a user experience which n0tice’s Matt McAlister hopes will help bring the digital and physical experiences of life together.
“We’re hopeful that n0tice can play an important new role in your world, helping you to become part of your surroundings.” (He reveals more about the thinking behind the developments on his personal blog here.)
We hope you’ll enjoy exploring the new n0tice.com and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank all our enthusiastic beta users for their help – and patience. Their input has been invaluable and we’ve enjoyed the challenges they’ve presented.
Offline briefly tonight
Posted: March 19, 2012 Filed under: announcements | Tags: n0tice, noticeboard Comments Offn0tice.com will be offline for a short time from 8pm tonight (Monday 19 March) for essential maintenance work. It won’t take long, and the site will be fully functioning again as soon as we’ve updated everything.
