News, social media and BBC Radio 1

You can listen to the radio on this. Chances are you don’t.

I’m a tad proud today. I’ve become just learned enough to be invited to write for the BBC College of Journalism’s website.

The future of news has become something of an obsession and a specialty over the last three years. I’ve been part of a team looking closely at the way newsrooms work and factoring-in new ways of working incorporating, in my case, social media.

For a chunk of that time, I’ve been working at Newsbeat, on BBC Radio 1. It is has been a brain-stretching joy to be back in a radio newsroom. The place buzzes with energy. Even with the alarm going off at 5.30am, it’s a place where you look forward to going into work.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far, on the college’s own site.  This has been tidily subbed down to fit their style, but in a couple of days, I’ll post the longer version.

If you work in journalism, radio, or social media, I hope it’ll be interesting reading, and I would really appreciate your comments.

HuffPost tests headline efficacy

The one above probably won’t win any awards

Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab is pointing out a very clever strategy the Huffington Post has used to discover which headlines get the best clicks.

It’s been A/B testing in realtime. Half the users see one headline, half see a different one. After a certain amount of time, the headline which has got the most clicks so far becomes the one that everyone else sees.

That’s smart.