Unfortunately, like many people, the Mail was caught out by the judge finding her guilty of slander - before clearing her of the murder. At the sound of the word "guilty", they hit publish on a story about her appeal being rejected that includes reactions from the family and prosecutors being delighted - reactions that can't have happened as she was found NOT guilty of murder.

But she wasn't guilty ...

The Sun did it too I later discovered.

It's the Sun wot run it

Anyway, here's the story from the Mail's site:

Mail story

And some quotes:

"Amanda Knox looked stunned this evening after she dramatically lost her prison appeal against her murder conviction. ...

As Knox realized the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears.

A few feet away Meredith's mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle, who had flown in especially for the verdict remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family.

Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that 'justice has been done' although they said on a 'human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail'.

Following the verdict Knox and Sollecito were taken out of court escorted by prison guards and into a waiting van which took her back to her cell at Capanne jail near Perugia and him to Terni jail, 60 miles away.

Both will be put on a suicide watch for the next few days as psychological assessments are made on each of them but this is usual practice for long term prisoners."

And here they are publishing the right story a bit later.

So which is it?!?

And here are the Sun's two stories ...

The Sun's two stories

Embarrassing. (To be fair, Sky News and the Guardian also claimed she'd been found guilty - just not quite in so much detail ...!)

They have one version of their headline in their HTML title (what Google shows in its web results) and news sitemap - this includes "Pippa Middleton arse" at the front: "Pippa Middleton arse: Motorist paid price for bum comments to girlfriend". This is also the URL they use: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386280/Pippa-Middleton-arse-Motorist-paid-price-bum-comments-girlfriend.html

But the version of the headline on their page just says "'Is Pippa's bum still better than mine???' How motorist with Middleton envy paid the price for comments to girlfriend".

Here's how their story looks in Google.

Saucy

And here's how it looks when you get to the Mail.

No arse in the on-page version

Cheeky, one might say. They haven't gone as far as optimising for Pippa's underwear yet (and they need to do a bit more as the caption on the last picture says "write caption here").

Update: They've removed the word arse! New screenshot:

Booooo

Pah.

New Year's resolutions

Mirror: stop with the Tynt overkill

Tynt is the thing that, when you copy some text from a webpage, adds some extra text to what you copy (explanation - and in video form).

Newspapers usually use it to add read more and then the URL to whatever you copied. The Mirror adds a sodding advert to it. This makes something that's  a bit annoying really annoying.

Look, this is what you end up with (I only selected the bit in quotes to copy):

“The intensity of the bruising and swelling would suggest a surgical procedure.”

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2011/01/04/gordon-ramsay-has-had-a-facelift-believe-experts-115875-22824883/#ixzz1A6oMDrBv

Go Camping for 95p! Vouchers collectable in the Daily and Sunday Mirror until 11th August . Click here for more information

Mail Online: fix your tweet button

Please fix the tweet button on your stories so that, when you click it, it adds the headline to the tweet box and not just a shortened URL.

Having to type the headline each time I want to share a Mail story is really annoying (especially as you use Tynt so you can't copy and paste the headline without then having to delete the URL).

Guardian: make it easier to find your minute by minutes

I enjoy the Guardian's minute-by-minute / clockwatch / over-by-over coverage of sports - I think they do it really well.

However, I often seem to want to access it on my mobile when I can't do so easily. Either because I'm in the middle of nowhere and mobile coverage is poor (as with my in-laws' house over Christmas trying to follow the Ashes) or because I'm at the Emirates and 60,000 other people are trying to use their mobiles at the same time.

Anyway, it would be cool if the Guardian set up a short URL - guardian.co.uk/clockwatch, say - that always redirected to the latest minute by minute page. That way I could bookmark that one URL and always go directly to what I want, without having to go via the sports category page first.

Guardian: speed up your mobile site

On the subject of the Guardian's minute-by-minute reports, the mobile site version always seems to be 10 minutes behind the full web version.

I've noticed this with the cricket and football live coverage lately. I don't know if it's a caching problem somewhere - maybe even out of the Guardian's control.

But if someone could fix it, please. I can't bear to use the mobile site (which I like) knowing that if I switched to the web version it's much more up to date.

Times: make your mind up with the paywall

I've been enjoying the Times coverage of the Ashes - that's because I've been reading it online for free. Mwah hah hah.

If you take a URL like, say, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/cricket/article2861947.ece and try to get there, you hit the paywall.

Replace "sport" in the URL with "public" and you can read the cricket content for free: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cricket/article2861947.ece.

I don't really know why they do this but it seems a bit odd. Only works with the cricket stories, sadly ... But they should stop it - or advertise it.

Mirror: Buy the online rights to photos

When I look at some mirror.co.uk stories in the morning they say "See the picture in today's Daily Mirror newspaper". Sometimes (as with this story) later in the day the picture is added.

Read the paper to see the picture

This really annoys me and makes me not want to click on your stories in the morning.

Image credit.

Back in June 2009, I somewhat rashly suggested that newspapers should turn off their RSS feeds as no one was using them (I then recanted slightly). Fortunately this means I have the data for back then on the number of people using Google Reader to subscribe to the three most popular RSS feeds for each UK newspaper.

So here's a table that compares the number of subscribers in Google Reader to each paper's most popular RSS feed 18 months ago and today - the overall fall is 68%.

The papers with large numbers of subscribers have seen significant drop offs. A couple have seen an increase (but from a very low base).

Some caveats:

• The search function in Google Reader can be a bit flaky sometimes, but I think I've found the top feeds in each case (although the feed with the most subscribers isn't always the same now as it was then).
• The number of people using Google Reader will have changed in the intervening 18 months - but I'm not aware of any figures which show that its market share has drastically fallen.
• The Times's numbers have obviously been affected by it going behind a paywall.

If you want to explore the data from June 2009, feel free. If you have any time, maybe you could work out the top three feeds now and compare them?

The debate was started by this post on whether RSS is dying (with a lively debate on Hacker News). TechCrunch reached the same conclusion separately. The truth is probably closest to this thoughtful follow up which distinguishes RSS as a mainstream browser-based user-facing service from a behind-the-scenes format. < Update I think that. I'm not saying RSS is dead. Don't flame me!

There's no right score - it depends on the audience, of course. These are ordered by basic score - the order's fairly surprising (though that may say more about Google's scores ...)

Sun

Overall reading level according to Google: Basic

Sun

FT

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

FT

Guardian

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

Guardian

Daily Mail

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

Daily Mail

Mirror

Overall reading level according to Google: Basic

Mirror

Times

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

The Times

Express

Overall reading level according to Google: Basic (which makes little sense given the graph ...)

Express

Telegraph

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

Telegraph

Independent

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

Independent

So if you ever want to know what a London SEO consultant does. It's this.

# August 12th, MailOnline are looking for a talented SEO Manager so if you found this you're the kind of techie we need!

Daily Mail's robots.txt file contains an SEO job advert

Genius! You could also contact Mail Online MD James Bromley on Twitter.

For those who don't know, the robots.txt file is how you tell search engines which pages they can and can't crawl on your site to include in their index.

In the past it was worth occasionally checking out newspapers' robots.txt files as they listed the URLs of stories that they've had to withdraw for legal reasons (or joke Polish editions). Sadly, they don't seem to do that so much these days (and they'd get lost in the Mirror's massive file). Plus there's no easy way to check if they've been updated - Google Reader's ability to track changing webpages doesn't work with robots.txt files. Boo.

If you liked this post, I've got lots more about SEO (try this story analysing Google's keywords tool). I also blog about newspapers a lot - such as the Daily Mail (this story was popular recently on iDosing) and lately a lot about the Times paywall.

Now, if you want to understand how journalism works, compare and contrast ...

A teenager high on iDosing

Videos on YouTube

The Mail

Videos posted on YouTube show a young girl freaking out and leaping up in fear, a teenager shaking violently and a young boy in extreme distress.

The Sun

Videos posted on YouTube show a young girl freaking out, a teenager shaking violently and a young boy in extreme distress as they listen to the sounds.

Flocking kids

The Mail

But there has been such alarm in the U.S. that the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs has issued a warning to children not to do it.

‘Kids are going to flock to these sites just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places, spokesman Mark Woodward said.

The Sun

There has been such alarm in the US that the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs has issued a warning to children not to do it.

Spokesman Mark Woodward said: "Kids are going to flock to these sites just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places."

News9.com from a few days ago

"Kids are going to flock to these sites just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places," said OBNDD spokesperson Mark Woodward.

A willingness to experiment

The Mail

He added that parental awareness is key to preventing future problems, since I-dosing could indicate a willingness to experiment with drugs.

The Sun

He added parental awareness is key to preventing future problems, as iDosing could indicate a willingness to experiment with drugs.

Newson6.com from a few days ago

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics said parental awareness is key to preventing future problems, since I-dosing could indicate a willingness to experiment with drugs.

Schools in Mustang

The Mail

Schools in the Mustang area recently sent out a letter warning parents about the new trend after several high school students reported having physiological effects after trying one of these digital downloads.

The Sun

Schools in the Mustang area recently sent out a letter warning parents about the new trend after several students reported experiencing physiological effects after listening to the downloads.

Newson6.com from a few days ago

Recently Mustang Public Schools sent out a letter warning parents about the new trend after several high school students reported having physiological effects after trying one of these digital downloads.

A ship's horn

The Mail

some sound like a ship’s horn being repeated again and again whilst others are more abrasive and resemble cheap synthesizers being played very fast.

The Sun

Some sound like a ship's horn being repeated again and again whilst others are more abrasive and resemble cheap synthesizers being played very fast.

Binaural beats

The Mail

Dr Helane Wahbeh, a Naturopathic Physician and Clinician Researcher at the Oregon Health and Science University, said: 'Binaural beats happen when opposite ears receive two different sound waves.

The Sun

Dr Helane Wahbeh, a Naturopathic Physician and Clinician Researcher at the Oregon Health and Science University, said: "Binaural beats happen when opposite ears receive two different sound waves.

NPR.org from a few days ago

Dr. HELANE WAHBEH (Naturopathic Physician and Clinician Researcher, Oregon Health and Science University): ... Binaural beats happen when opposite ears receive two different sound waves.

Not similar to cocaine or ecstasy

The Mail

‘But when you listen to these sounds with stereo headphones, the listener senses the difference between the two frequencies as another beat that sounds like it's coming from the inside of the head.’

But Dr Wahbeh denied there was any possibility that someone could experience similar effects to cocaine or ecstasy.

She said: 'We did a small controlled study with four people, and we did not see any brain wave activity shifting to match the binaural beat that people were listening to.’

The Sun

"When you listen to these sounds with stereo headphones, the listener senses the difference between the two frequencies as another beat that sounds like it's coming from the inside of the head."

But Dr Wahbeh denied there was any possibility that someone could experience similar effects to cocaine or ecstasy.

She said: "We did a small controlled study with four people, and we did not see any brain wave activity shifting to match the binaural beat that people were listening to."

From npr.org a few days ago

But when you listen to these sounds with stereo headphones, the listener senses the difference between the two frequencies as another beat that sounds like it's coming from the inside of the head. ...

NORRIS [interviewer]: Now, based on your research, is it possible that listening to these tracks might lead someone to experience something tantamount to the effects of taking cocaine or ecstasy or even Viagra?

Dr. WAHBEH: We did a small controlled study with four people, and we did not see any brain wave activity shifting to match the binaural beat that people were listening to.

Two iDosings, please.

The charts show how the number of stories about Nick Clegg has soared in The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Guardian - even allowing for the fact a general election is on.

Comparing April with January:

• Daily Mail: 37% more stories about David Cameron - more than 4 times as many about Nick Clegg.
• The Sun: 27% more stories about Cameron - more than 11 times as many about Clegg.
• The Guardian: 80% more stories about Cameron - more than 6 times as many about Clegg.

Daily Mail

Clegg bounce in the Daily Mail

Sun

Clegg bounce in The Sun

Guardian

Clegg bounce in The Guardian

Figures calculated using the sites' own search function. Pictures from My David Cameron and Daily Mail. April figures are until today, 22 April.

Twitter as a referrer

Figures for the UK

Trying my luck somewhat, I asked the three largest UK newspaper sites (Telegraph, Daily Mail and Guardian) what their figures were.

• For the Mail, under 0.5% of their referrer traffic is from Twitter.
• For the Telegraph, 0.5% of global traffic and 0.25% of UK traffic currently comes from Twitter.
• For the Guardian, 0.4% of their page impressions in February came from Twitter.

Interpreting these figures

These figures are slightly lower than in the US (but that is where Twitter began) but will have grown strongly over the last 12 months from data I've seen for another newspaper site. I'm sure, as with the US, this puts Twitter in or near the top 10 referrers.

How many people

To put these into perspective, these newspaper sites get around 2 million unique users a day, so 0.5% is 10,000 visitors a day. While not to be sneezed at, it shows that search, news aggregators and direct traffic (RSS/bookmarks) are still more important than Twitter (whatever those of us on Twitter might think).

Twitter.com vs Twitter clients

But please bear in mind that interpreting Twitter traffic is notoriously hard - you can measure traffic that comes from twitter.com (although not always if it's using a URL shortener that frames the target page). Measuring traffic from other desktop clients (tweetdeck etc) is much harder.

@dirktherabbit pointed out recently that less than 20% of people access Twitter through the web. Danny Sullivan had a good rant that addressed many of the problems with people who release Twitter statistics (with a shorter summary of that here).

Looking at the stats for my own blog (comparing direct traffic (which is how Google Analytics records Twitter client traffic) to twitter.com referrals on days when there is a spike in traffic due to some Twitter-driven lynch mob), between 2 and 4 times as much traffic comes from desktop clients as twitter.com.

Thank yous

Thanks to James Bromley, Julian Sambles and Martin Belam for taking the time and being willing to share this data. If you'd like to follow some of their papers' Twitter feeds, try these links:

• The Daily Mail has a main headline Twitter feed at @mailonline. The easiest way to find its other feeds currently is to see who @DMAILsports is following.
• The Telegraph has a list of all Telegraph Twitter feeds. There is also a Twitter list of all these accounts, plus one of all Telegraph journalists on Twitter.
• The Guardian also has a list of the official Guardian Twitter accounts.

Oh, and you could also check out my previous posts on newspapers on twitter.

As it's late, I shall limit myself to comparing the reported ruling with the original article ...

PCC: "While many complainants considered that there was an underlying tone of negativity towards Mr Gately and the complainant on account of the fact that they were gay, it was not possible to identify any direct uses of pejorative or prejudicial language in the article."

Jan Moir: "the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see".

What lifestyle does she mean here?

Jan Moir: "Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael. Of course, in many cases this may be true."

How gracious - "may" be true "in many cases" that "not everyone" is like George Michael (whatever that means).

Jan Moir: "Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships."

What's she saying, that all civil partnerships are doomed to end unhappily?

PCC: Moir's claim that Gately's death had not been "natural", while controversial and speculative, "could not be established as accurate or otherwise".

Couldn't we have just use the post mortem to decide this?