I must admit, I love lists. Some years ago, I used to hang around at Poetikon, a Norwegian poetry site with quirky, sweet things, such at lists of more or less important things. This list (translated “Something worth living for” – push “lister” at the bottom if you can’t see it) I found using the wayback machine from 2005). I thought all the poetic lists were so inspiring that some girl friends and I even started writing similar lists and read them load to each other in a writing group we had, back in 2003. Morten Skogly, now at Nrkbeta, seems to still be the brainpower behind Poetikon. Morten, if Twitter existed back then, we would have sent the lists to you as tweets!

But I was suppose to talk about other kinds of lists – blog lists. I just read a very interesting book about UK blogging, “Total Politics. Guide to Political Blogging in the UK, 2008-9″, supported by the APCO Worldwide, a communication company. As the title states, this is about political blogs in the UK, and gives us the top 200 UK political blogs, top 20 MP blogs, top 40 Scottish blogs, top 30 media blogs, etc. And the book is part of this website, Total Politics, where political junkies can go nuts. According to this book, here are the top 3 UK political blogs (all of them Conservative):

1. Guido Fawkes
2. Iain Dale
3. Conservative Home

I don’t follow the British blogosphere close enough to be able to judge this list, but at least, these lists give me useful guidance when trying to orient myself among the political blogs on the other side of the channel.

And it annoys me that we have so few blog lists in Norway. Why don’t we every year have a best blog, best tech blog, best political blog, best academic blog, best car blog, best knitting blog, etc?

I was part of the jury in 2005 when Dagbladet awarded Gullbloggen to Vampus (in the article, you will also find the winners in the other categories), and one of the best things about a list like that, is that you can actually give the readers some guidance. Almost every week, people ask me for advice for how to find different kinds of blogs. Some are already into the blogosphere and may be looking for specific niche blogs, while others just want to start reading more blogs, but don’t know where to start.

The Norwegian blogosphere is small, but big enough to get lost. And the few blogging portals (Bloggurat, blogg.no, iNorden, Bloggoversikt, Bloggrevyen are helpful, but only to a certain degree. My best suggestion for finding blogs are other bloggers’ blogrolls (reminder to myself – update my blogroll!). Such a link trip will guaranteed give you some new blogs to subscribe to in your RRS reader.

But still, even though I have my favourites, Top 10-lists within different categories would give readers needed help to orient themselves and actually start reading blogs. Don’t forget that voting is good fun and it gives your publication lots of linklove.

So, who will compile the list of Top 10 blogs in Norway?

I de rundt regnet 100 dagene (er ikke forresten det per definisjon hvetebrødsdagenes varighet?) iNorden har eksistert, har vi vært vitner til en rivende utvikling, til å være et ubemidlet initiativ, iallfall. Men nettstedet har noen store utfordringer, som Knut Sparhell bemerker i en kommentar i sin blogg i dag. På den ene siden er er det mange som mener at iNordens nærmest anarkistiske styringsmodell er selve sjarmen ved nettstedet. Samtidig er det hevet over tvil at en slik modell før eller siden fører til at den enkelte (i dette tilfellet Knut selv og jeg) føler for å distansere seg en tanke.

Jeg er med andre ord enig med ham når han skriver at et diffust ansvar er et problem, samtidig som det for mange utgjør selve appellen. Likevel har vi nyss sett et eksempel på hva det kan føre til.

I kommentaren sin (lenken over) skriver han imidlertid:

[…] Jeg ønsker meg ikke noe “Hegnar Online” der utenforstående personer og grupper stadig sjikaneres, men et debattmiljø der “angrep” på forfatter av debattartikler tåles.

Det er her våre veier skilles, tror jeg. Noen er tykkhudet, andre er det ikke. Jeg ønsker meg ikke et nettsted som ekskluderer dem som mangler tykk hud. Debatter bør, etter mitt syn, dreie seg om sak – ikke om dem som tar del i dem. Jeg er heller ikke begeistret for debatter tykkhudede imellom, for den saks skyld, men så behøver jeg jo heller ikke å oppsøke dem. Problemet oppstår først når de dukker opp på et nettsted hvor man selv er redaktør. Slike situasjoner krever en avklaring – for ens egen skyld, iallfall. På dette punktet ser det ut til at Knut og jeg er så pass uenig at jeg frykter for det videre samarbeidet, skjønt jeg håper på det beste.

(Bakgrunnen for det hele fins her.)

Jeg er en av dem som må velge sine saker med omhu. Går jeg inn i et engasjement, er det fullt og helt, aldri stykkevis og delt. Dessuten ble iNorden til på mitt initiativ. Selv om jeg har ivret for et kollektivt eierskap, har jeg ikke riktig klart å riste av meg den intense pasjonen man uvegerlig får for egne barn. For meg ble det til slutt for altoppslukende. Var det betalt arbeid, kunne det kanskje forsvares, men når det går på bekostning av oppdrag både familien og jeg skal leve av (noe det altfor lenge har gjort), er det tid for å ta hånd i hanke.

For min del betyr det at jeg i noen tid nok vil begrense meg til sporadiske bidrag på iNorden, mens jeg vurderer egen evne til å begrense engasjementet til et akseptabelt nivå.

Nå skal jeg være den første til å vedgå at jeg kanskje er en smule ekstrem i all min muligens misforståtte hensynstagen, som kanskje best belyses med disse eksemplene:

• Jeg hadde lørdagsvakt i Aftenposten da Reiulf Steen via NTB gikk offentlig ut med sin psykiske lidelsesberetning for ti år siden. Jeg vurderte saken som utidig dyneløfting (om aldri så selvforskyldt), som vi trygt kunne overlate til boulevardene – og lot den ligge. Min sjef var dypt uenig. Det var da jeg skjønte at Aftenposten ikke lenger var… vel, Aftenposten. I alle fall på nett (skjønt jeg gladelig tar æren for at Aftenposten ikke er blant avisene De får opp om De søker «+”reiulf steen” +psykisk» i Sesams nyhetssøk).
• I Norge (og de fleste land jeg vet om) tilligger det domstolene å utmåle dømte forbryteres straff. I løpet av det siste tiåret eller så har vi imidlertid sett at også mediene har påtatt seg ansvar for å ilegge en tilleggsstraff mange av de dømte formodentlig anser langt verre enn domstolenes: full offentliggjøring av navn og – i en del tilfeller – bilde. Jeg begriper ikke at pressen får lov til å fortsette praksisen.

Det er mulig jeg presseetisk er gått ut på dato, men dette er så pass dypt rotfestede grunnholdninger, at jeg er redd det er lite å gjøre med saken. Heri ligger nok også mye av bakgrunnen for at jeg ikke er komfortabel med visse sider av mediedemokratiseringen, enda jeg mer enn de fleste har ivret for den. Og jeg ser paradokset. Kanskje venter jeg meg for mye.

Overskriften, spør De? Fred Rune Rahm har utvist en beundringsverdig sinnsro midt oppi det hele (og så innbød nå liksom overskriften til det), som en fornuftens røst midt oppi tumultene. Ikke å forglemme Øyvind Strømmen og Heidi Helene Sveen, som holder hjulene gående mens vi andre sitter med hodene begravd i tenkekassen. Stor takk også til våre altfor få danske og svenske redaktører – og alle bidragsytere. Sannelig har det ikke kommet noen nye og spennende stemmer borti der også.

Men når alt er sagt og gjort: Knut Sparhell kan ikke berømmes nok for sin tekniske innsikt, sin kreativitet og fantastiske løsninger. Han har vært et funn for iNorden, som jeg håper blir. Ellers frykter jeg for den tekniske utviklingen av iNorden, som ennå har mye ugjort.

Og kanskje… kanskje må hele modellen tas til revurdering. Kollektivismen og jeg har aldri vært spesielt gode venner, men jeg trodde et kollektivt ansvar kunne ha noe for seg på et sted som iNorden – om ikke annet, for å demonstrere det virkelig folkelige fundamentet, til forskjell fra de kommersielle medienes borgerjournalistiske eksperimenter, som er iverksatt av profitthensyn.

Ikke et vondt ord om inntekter, altså, men jeg foretrekker denne hjemmesnekrede devisen:

Inntekter for å kunne bedrive journalistikk — ikke journalistikk for å generere inntekter.

iNorden mangler mangler rett nok inntekter i ethvert henseende, men jeg syns likevel det er en fin regel, om jeg må si det selv.

Foto: Egen PC, “eget” nettsted og egen lanke, knipset med egen mobil.

Som meldt borte på Borgerjournalistikk i går morges, lå iNorden på det tidspunktet på rygg og “hev etter været”, men de nordiske borgerjournalistene, meg selv inkludert, fikk visst ikke bli så lenge i Paradis.

Ved 21-tiden i går kveld ble nettstedet på ny midlertidig stengt av webhotellet, som så seg tvunget til å skjerme maskinparken for noen voldsomme prosesser, som altså kjørte på iNorden. Problemet ble identifisert og isolert i natt, men nettstedet må gjøres tilgjengelig for programmeringsguru Knut Sparhell før alt kjører igjen – og for at det skal kunne skje, må nettstedet åpnes igjen.

Alt vi kan gjøre nå, er å vente på at webhotellets nattportier skal våkne og ta tak. Det skjer sannsynligvis hvilket øyeblikk som helst nå.

Oppdatering:

iNorden er atter på luften, og alt later til å være fryd, gammen og lutter sjokolade.

Foto: En wikimedia-server (Wikimedia Commons)

iNorden har det siste døgnet slitt med store tekniske problemer, og ligger for øyeblikket på rygg og hiver etter været. Det er uklart om problemet ligger i publiseringsverktøyet (WordPress) eller i webhotellet.

Vi krysser fingrene for at nettstedet er på bena igjen om litt.

Update:

Problemet ligger angivelig i webhotellet, som åpenbart bedriver oppdateringer av noe slag, men jeg ser nå at iN er oppe å stå igjen, og samtlige skuldre tilbake i sedvanlig avslappet vinkel.

The Online Journalism Atlas continues, with Kristine Lowe looking at online journalism in Norway, where some newspapers make more money online than in print. Got any information about your own country’s online journalism? Add it here.

Norway is one of the most newspaper-reading in countries in the world, a fact also reflected in the country’s online media environment. In contrast to many other countries, Norwegians seem to prefer news-driven sites with journalistic content to all others. 

Early starters

Early adoption has put Norwegian online media at a great at advantage, some of the online players even earn good money.  

The first traditional Norwegian newspaper to hit the web was Brönnöysundsavis, a regional paper which launched its online edition 6 March 1995, closely followed by Dagbladet, the country’s second biggest tabloid.  

Norway’s biggest newspaper, VG, a tabloid, and Aftenposten, the country’s biggest broadsheet, both owned by Norwegian media group Schibsted, also started publishing online in 1995. Schibsted, who own media assets in a number of other European countries, have since garnered international recognition for their successful transition online. Following a favourable mention in  the Economist, this transition was even put on the curriculum at Harvard University.

VG is now not only Norway’s most read news site, it is the country’s most visited website overall. 

Another early starter was Nettavisen, the country’s first online only newspaper, which saw daylight on 1 November 1996. The founders of this paper later helped start German sister site Netzeitung in 2000. 

Ownership structure and profits 

Schibsted

Schibsted is the dominant player in Norway’s media landscape. The company owns VG, the most read newspaper both on paper and online, and Aftenposten, the most influential national newspaper. The media group also owns the country’s biggest online market place, Finn.no, Norwegian search engine Sesam Sök and stakes in several of the major regional newspapers.  The country’s most read business site, E24, is also a Schibsted product.

To give a clue about the audience the site aims to attract: its Swedish sister site famously advertised for “journalists with expensive habits” in 2007.  Innovation is expensive, and many of Schibsted’s most recent ventures, like its European freesheets, are loss-making, but several of its online product are very profitable. Finn.no has had a profit margin around 40 per cent for three consecutive years (2003 – 2006), and VG.no is in a similar position: for 2007, it is expected to deliver a profit margin of 42 – 45 per cent. Schibsted’s newspapers have traditionally been politically conservative. 

Dagbladet

Dagbladet is the country’s second biggest tabloid. Owned by the Berner group, the liberal newspaper is in the unique position that it has more readers online than in print. Online is also where Dagbladet makes money (the print version is in the red). Dagbladet online recorded a record profit of 26,6 per cent in 2005, but this was reduced to 13 per cent in 2006. 

Edda Media

Edda Media is the Norwegian arm of Mecom. The newspaper group consists of a number of regional and local newspapers, with a total of 27 online newspapers, as well as local radio and TV stations (some of which are subsidiaries of the respective local newspapers) and a few specialist online portals. When the company was acquired by the British group in 2006 it had an average profit margin of 7.5 percent. 

A-pressen and TV2

A-pressen is another major media group, owned by the Labour Union, Telenor, the country’s partly-privatised phone company, and free speech charity Fritt Ord. The group owns a number of local and regional newspaper, as well as 50 per cent of the country’s biggest commercial TV channel, TV2.

Until recently, A-pressen was not known for being very innovative online, but it is now pressing ahead with a new online venture together with TV2 that has seen the two share more content and launch ‘hyperlocal’ search engine derdubor.no (where you live). 

TV2 bought Nettavisen in 2003, and until recently the news site provided almost all of the content for the TV channels website. This is about to change, and under the leadership of TV2’s new CEO, Alf Hildrum, the company will use more resources on developing a website aimed at marketing the TV channel’s programmes. 

Public broadcasting

Norway’s public broadcaster, NRK, has also focused a lot more on its website recently, launching a number of new online portals – such as weather portal yr.no and children’s portal super.no. It is expected that NRK will see substantial traffic increase to its website as it starts opening up more and more of its archive in 2008, enabling users to download archive material for free.

The online team at NRK is also actively marketing NRK’s content  in places like YouTube, Facebook and MySpace, and has signed an agreement with Joost to broadcast a separate NRK channel there.  

Other players

There are currently two other major TV channels in Norway: TVN, owned by German Pro Sieben; and TV3 Norway, owned by Swedish Modern Times Group (MTG), but the websites of both are focused on marketing TV content, not on online journalism. 

ABC Startsiden, owned by Telenor, is currently Norway’s third most used website. It comprises Startsiden.no (a catalogue of websites), a search engine and a WAP-service. In March 2007 it launched its own news site, ABC Nyheter. The news site was the first commercial site in Norway to nurture citizen journalism as part of its site. ‘Citizen articles’ is currently a separate section on the site, but articles from this section are sometimes used in the main section of the site, always clearly labelled ‘citizen articles’. The internet company delivered a 65 per cent profit margin in 2006, a margin expected to be marginally down for 2007. 

Aller Internett is made up of ten different news sites: some of the oldest, like IT-site digi.no, going all the way back to 1996. Together with TV2 Nettavisen and Norway’s four biggest regional newspapers, it also owns business site NA24 – the second most-read business site after E24. 

Other notable Norwegian news outlets are Dagens Naeringsliv and Finansavisen (both financial dailies) Dagsavisen,  Klassekampen and Morgenbladet, all newspapers and all with news sites, but none of these have made a huge impact in the online environment.

Blogs, Social Networks and Community

In an egalitarian country such as Norway, it’s perhaps not surprising that the newspapers have left most of the blogging their to readers, rather than encouraging their reporters to venture into the blogosphere.

Dagbladet is a notable exception, its reporters started blogging as early as 2002, but these blogging efforts were more mostly abandoned. Since 2005, Dagbladet and VG have both had blogging platforms where readers are encouraged to set up blogs. These thriving blogging communities are further encouraged by competitions to write ‘blog post of the week’ etc. (MyTelegraph was a latecomer compared to these two online newspaper communities). 

Other than that, Aftenposten has set up a blogging site for its foreign correspondents, but there’s not much blogging going on there as of yet. Most of the national newspapers do have something called blogs on their sites, but the content is more akin to traditional op-eds published on a blog platform, and the feeling of reading an op-ed is exacerbated by the fact that many of the online newspapers don’t link out.   

VG and Dagbladet also have their own social networks, Nettby and Blink, both launched in 2006. The former is the second largest social network in Norway, with 606,000 registered users. 

Outside of mainstream media, Norway does have a thriving blogging scene, though in contrast to England, we haven’t seen blogs setting the political agenda in any major way. Norwegian blogs tend to be more diary-like, often almost literary in form. 

Among more co-ordinated non-mainstream online media sites, INorden, the Scandinavian citizen journalism site written by bloggers, and Sonitus, a ‘human blog aggregator’ – a site made possible by dedicated individuals who continuously sift through Norwegian blogs to pull out the best blog posts – also deserve to be mentioned.  

Education

Traditionally, the journalism schools at Volda and in Oslo have been the two main institutions training journalists: the former used to educate the broadcast journalists, the latter the print journalists. With the new focus on multimedia journalism, this is now changing and both schools strive to incorporate more training in online journalism.

There are also a number of other journalism schools in the country, including a course whose graduates are currently in so much in demand that many are recruited before they graduate: a BA in business journalism at business school, BI. 

Kristine Lowe is a journalist and blogger who writes for a number of Norwegian, British and American clients. Of the organisations mentioned here, Kristine has worked for NRK, Dagens Naeringsliv, NA24 and ABC Nyheter in recent times. She is also a regular contributor to Ethical Space: the international journal for communication ethics. 

I’ve spent just about four to five months preparing the launch of, implementing and running the Nordic citizen journalism site iNorden (link to the international edition), alongside a handful of very fine people, without whom the very idea would remain in my head.

Finally things are pointing in the right direction. Traffic figures are on the rise, with an ever-increasing level of reader/user participation. I don’t think any of us really anticipated the level of involvement required by each and everyone of us, especially now that things are going our way. While user participation grows day by day, the editorial staff’s involvement is limited to a few heads, actually no more than three or four on a daily basis, which of course takes its toll on each of us.

Consequently (well, in truth, that’s not all) I’m taking a time-out, limiting my participation to contributing articles and sporadic editing. This, of course, is of no consequence to you. Then again, the blog’s name provides clues aplenty, wouldn’t you say?

Just thought I’d let you know: Whatever happens over at iNorden these days, It’s got nothing to do with me. Consider it my very personal disclaimer.

A late addition

Who am I fooling? I’m every bit as active over at iN – as ever before, in spite of significantly reduced involvement. Still publishing four – five articles a day, editing twice as many. But I do have assignments. Have to focus. Get a hold of yourself, Jarle (now there’s a note to self, the global bloggers’ all-time favourite expression, if ever I saw one).

What do they say it is?

“iNorden.org is a joint Nordic citizen journalism initiative inviting bloggers, writers, aspiring and experienced journalists to contribute in the creation of a Nordic news portal.”

What do we say it is?

iNorden is yet another citJ experiment. The difference here is that it’s driven by a sort of pan-Scandinavian post-nationalism rather than profit.

What’s great about it?

Its wide network of semi-professional editors brings cohesion to the nascent community of contributors. A two-tier, pro-am-like structure like this allows for real brand image development while remaining very open to audience-generated content.

A fully grown website running on WordPress also makes great economic sense (and, incidentally, exemplifies the uselessness of Instant Journalism).

What could be better?

Its much-advertised modesty is palpable in the web0.2 design. The site’s activity suffers, maybe as a result. iNorden ranks 2 millionth on Alexa. (That’s still significant, even when we take into account Alexa’s 110% error margin.)

It needs better positioning, moving further away from traditional, old-media brands to develop its own identity. Looking at the stories in English, it still seems iNorden follows the same leads. Competing with AP isn’t a good idea when you have no capital to start with.

How is it going to make money?

It’s not going to and it doesn’t want to. iNorden is non-profit and proud of it. That gives the brand a lot of credibility at a time where everyone tries to milk users for their content. User experience could very well be enhanced as a result.

Should I pay it any attention?

Yes, if you want to check on the web’s ability to deliver fresh ideas. With all its sincerity and, maybe, naiveté, iNorden’s getting the success it deserves would prove, once again, that the web has crushed the barriers of the offline world.

by Nicolas Kayser-Bril

I det siste har bidragene fra svenske og danske bloggere på iNorden.se og iNorden.dk langt overgått hva vi har sett fra norske bloggere på iNorden.no – aktivitetsmessig, noe som rimeligvis har vakt en smule bekymring i den norske redaksjonen. Er nordmenn simpelthen seg selv mer enn nok, slik vi så det under folkeavstemningen om EU-medlemskap i 1994?

Det finner vi liten grunn til å tro. Tross alt ble det nordiske samarbeidet, og Norges aktive rolle i FN og NATO, fremholdt som gode grunner for at vi ikke behøver EU.

Denne bloggerens teori er at nordmenn simpelthen føler seg underlegne i selskap med svensker og dansker, noe det overhodet ikke er grunnlag for.

Besøk iNorden.no nå, og registrer deg som bidragsyter – eller overlat spørsmålet om gjensidig nordisk dialog til svenskene og danskene, og styrk dem i troen på at de faktisk er bedre enn oss.

Registrering skjer nederst på samtlige sider borte på iNorden.no.

Den nye nordiske borgerjournalist-bloggen iNordens internasjonale utgave, english.iNorden.org, er på utkikk etter nordiske bloggere (eller andre skribenter) som skriver på engelsk. Siden det ikke eksisterer en engelskspråklig nyhetstjeneste på nett som dekker Norden under ett, håper redaksjonen å kunne fylle det vakuumet, men avhenger av at det blir etablert en kjerne av såkalte “staff writers”, som kan bidra til at målet blir en realitet. Bidragsytere som utviser spesielle ferdigheter vil også bli spurt om å fungere som redaktør.

Er du selv en aktuell kandidat — eller vet du om noen som kunne tenkes å være det?

Sving innom her for flere detaljer!