Starting an online newspaper from multiple sources

[Clare]

Hi Guys - haven't been on here in ages.

My idea started from being annoyed that there is a gap in the web that fails to show some news I would like. So for my own sake I want to start collating that news, which I know will have to come from multiple other sites. I can hardly drop everything and become a freelance reporter, so I can't generate the stories I want from scratch!

I am hoping that with a sufficiently sensible website name and a bit of work to find the bits of information I should be able to produce something that other people will be interested in and will be able to find easily. Who knows? If this takes off seriously enough, genuine reporters might just start to volunteer reports specifically for the site... in my dreams, or way off into the future!

The questions are these:
1. How quickly would I have to get enough traffic that it started to annoy an ISP which offers me a free space to host a website?
2. Would I need to buy a domain name rather than use my "personal" website allowance?
3. How easy is it to add RSS feeds and make them look good?

Failing that, if someone else can come up with a really good page to display news covering all aspects of women's UK/European sports updated at least weekly, I would love to see it! Seriously, most coverage in newspapers is rubbish, or borderline non-existent.

[masm50]

It sounds like all you want is a decent RSS reader..?

Rather than building all this from scratch, services like Google Reader and Netvibes (my preference) allow you to add any RSS feeds you like (and almost all sites have them) and then use them from there.

Alternatively, you could setup a twitter account to only follow people who report on the stuff you like, and news outlets that do the same and then set up a paper.li accounts to make it into a personalised digital newspaper each day for you.

[austenhepburn]

Seriously, most coverage in newspapers is rubbish, or borderline non-existent??? it is extreme

[florida_buddy]

Yup, subscribe to tweets and RSS related to the topic or field that you would wish to cover. Start a free blog at Blogger or Wordpress, they offer free blog hosting and you can post your news/stories there. As you generate more traffic that's the time to think about whether you will want to purchase your own domain and hosting or not.

[Clare]

Thanks masm50 and florida_buddy. Hadn't really thought about that route! Good way to boost the ratings of sites where they do the actual reporting, too.

I have an idea where austenhepburn lives, and perhaps the coverage of women in sports there is 50-50, but here it is less than 1% of the content of most published newspapers. Unless they can make the pics look slightly sleazy, most of the papers will not report women in sport because "they haven't got enough media profile". In other words, "We can't be bothered covering them, and because we don't cover their sports they are not household names, and therefore not worth covering". A particularly vicious form of vicious circle.

This may be why women's football in the UK - where football is the national sport - is still amateur, whereas soccer in the US has already got a proper professional league for women.

Sadly, to call it rubbish and borderline non-existent is simply a statement of fact...

[Mikl]

Clare, are you talking about actually collecting content from news sites, and re-publishing it on your own site?

If so, this would be a gross infringement of copyright, and you would leave yourself open to action from the companies that own the original sites. You could probably get away with re-posting extracts from the original articles, and you could certainly post links to them, but you won't get away with wholesale copying of the text.

I'm sorry to be negative about this, but it's definitely something you should keep in mind.

Mike

[RaySaj]

Well what you are talking about to be more precise, and if I have not got this wrong is content curation.......you will nor be breaking any infringment laws..................have a look mat scoop.it

[Shyflower]

Well what you are talking about to be more precise, and if I have not got this wrong is content curation.......you will nor be breaking any infringment laws..................have a look mat scoop.it

What do you mean by "content curation". The word "curation" means "to cure".

If the intent is to harvest news from other sites without that site's permission, then it is indeed copyright infringement and it is indeed illegal. "Scooping" news means being the first publication to broadcast a particular story, in which case, that would not be infringement. However, without a large team, it's pretty difficult to "scoop" any news item in front of traditional media.

[Sogo7]

1. How quickly would I have to get enough traffic that it started to annoy an ISP which offers me a free space to host a website?
2. Would I need to buy a domain name rather than use my "personal" website allowance?
3. How easy is it to add RSS feeds and make them look good?

1. Several free webhosting providers like X10 Hosting and 000Webhost will allow you to have TEN gigabytes of monthly traffic, using a free hosting account. So it's unlikely you'll run out of bandwidth anytime soon plus other freely available services such as CloudFlare, the Google App Engine and Yahoo Pipes can all be used to increase a websites traffic capacity for free.

2. Take a look at GBBO.co.uk, as a UK resident you can get a .co.uk domain name free for the first two years. Sub domain-names issued by hosting providers for free though much maligned still perform well in search rankings but AVOID .co.cc as Google refuses to index them at all.

3. RSS feeds are really easy to add to any website using javascript, see DynamicDrive XML/RSS scripts but if you want to add them properly you'll need to use server side scripting such as PHP (there are some Wordpress Plugins that do this) as this will allow search engines to read and associate the content with your website.


PS: can't help with news content but the Job Hunter Project or LoveLogic Jobs may allready have an RSS feed for job vacancies in your area, if not then ask them because I know they will help.

[mike3608]

I think mashable also started with the same concept, and at the same concept google news is also working, the new year resolution for such kind dream would be to start a Little press release company, that will bring some news kind of content, later on if this grows then the concept of authentic online news can grow. Remember journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Regard
CEO,
Traffic Spinners

[Emilly]

I would advise you to start with blog on this topic at first... This will bring you some experience in reporting)

[ServerStorm]

I would advise you to start with blog on this topic at first... This will bring you some experience in reporting)

Welcome to Sitepoint Emilly!

I agree with Emilly, as you seem to be passionate in furthering proper press and coverage of Women's Football then who better to write about it than you?

Finding news sites that allow you to consume and publish their R.S.S. feeds is another way to go. If using a language like PHP you can also filter the R.S.S. so that only stories that contain certain keywords like 'Women', 'Football', 'Soccer' get through. However there is that nagging issue with North American Football being Football and Soccer is Soccer, whereas everywhere else in the world Football is Football (North American Soccer). Also you may not want Lingerie Football League RSS content or news stories making their way into you site.

You can also work to get approval to re-publish other authors work, but this can be time-consuming, and/or costly, and/or climbing through lost of red tape; I know because I have done this on several occasions.

Steve

[nomanzia]

for news paper websites you need a good team and social media marketing techniques such as rss good blogs twitting and all activations in all social website.

[mobilecruzenet]

The questions are these:
1. How quickly would I have to get enough traffic that it started to annoy an ISP which offers me a free space to host a website?
2. Would I need to buy a domain name rather than use my "personal" website allowance?
3. How easy is it to add RSS feeds and make them look good?

Hmmm , 1.i feel take a wordpress blog for free but u need to take a little hosting which dont cost u much and why wordpress? coz it has the best seo tools to make ur website more popular and easier to work
2.ya u have to buy a domain coz later if u work in success u can do more stuff with that domain like purchasing related domains to make a group of websites ex: ur domain www.crazynews.com then later if u work hard then u can go for crazygames.com(gaming) crazymovies.com(movies) and lotz more and purchasing a domain wont bring u problems
3.rss is just like pain in the ass :P but work hard to make it good

i hope my tips will help u out

[Clare]

What do you mean by "content curation". The word "curation" means "to cure".

If the intent is to harvest news from other sites without that site's permission, then it is indeed copyright infringement and it is indeed illegal. "Scooping" news means being the first publication to broadcast a particular story, in which case, that would not be infringement. However, without a large team, it's pretty difficult to "scoop" any news item in front of traditional media.

I think Raj was using the term curation as in the activity carried out by a curator - someone who curates news. It is a tricky word to manipulate fully in English (as a non-native speaker) when some words can take that ending and others cannot...

As to the news content, I had no plans to plagiarise other reports. I had intended to create a site mostly made up of links to the primary reporters so that I was giving them the full due credit and not infringing copyright, hence the idea of using RSS feeds. By their very nature, they are designed for spreading the word. However, I tried looking up the biggest teams in the biggest/most professional sports in the UK and while the England Ladies Rugby team have an RSS feed, the equivalent cricket and football teams do not seem to have the same on their pages.

Not to worry though. The searching has unearthed a brilliant website for women's sports news around the world at http://www.womensportreport.com/ which seems to do what I was going to try to do. I have linked to it from my facebook account, so now I don't need to go to all that trouble!

Thanks for all your replies. If I find a new reason to start a paper online, I have several avenues to try.

[Shyflower]

@Clare ; From your first post, I never thought you had intent to plagiarize. I want to make that clear. However, I also wanted to make it clear to all members that we don't discuss tactics or strategies here that result in plagiarism. That's why I posted what I did. Dictionary.com does not define the word "curation" or "curate" in reference to copy or writing.

[mamoon]

@Shyflower ;
i am agree with u shyflower "curate" word is not in a dictionary.com
@Clare ;
you have to buy your own domain i think its most beneficial for you earn more.

[Jac0b]

Good idea!
At first you need to find really great sources.
Content is the most important for this project as I understand.

Also you can start 2 simple blogs (blogspot.com and wordpress.com platforms) to promote your site in case if you will buy a domain name

[Shyflower]

The op has found her solution.

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