Did social media come of age in G20 online coverage?

For a few tension-fuelled hours on the streets of London last night, Britain’s national press faced a new challenge. It wasn’t just a golden opportunity to show they could harness the power of social media content, but more a test to see if they were ready to be driven by it.

So lining up the BBC, Telegraph, Guardian, Times and Sky websites next to a hyperactive Twitter #G20 feed made for an evening of drama and, frankly, disappointment.

Those who went with the ebb and flow of content pouring in from journalists and the Twitterverse, using a simple dynamic platform for delivery, won hands down. The losers were those who, in the best newspaper traditions, tried to dictate content and form across static pages.

Both the Telegraph and BBC ran updated maps, requiring a mouse click on symbols to trigger a text bubble or link. Nice in theory. But a terrible jumble in practice.

Live means live. Or not, in the case of Sky’s CoveritLive feed, which knocked off at teatime. Shame, because their live TV coverage was outstanding.

Likewise, I had expected great things of the Guardian, but their G20 Live Blog conveyed very little of the energy bursting out of Twitter’s #G20. The Guardian did have a Twitter feed … from its reporters and bloggers … on another page. Powered by Scribble Live (not heard of it before) it seemed little more than a nod to social media.

The Telegraph’s Live Blog page was good solid stuff, much like the BBC, with regular updates from quality journalists. But ‘good solid stuff’’ didn’t quite capture the unfolding drama. Still, the Telegraph’s G20 home page was sheer class. Clear layout and authoritative content with a Twitterfall feed that injected pace as well as people. If I had only15 minutes to catch up with the G20, I’d start here.

Twitter excelled in conveying the raw emotion of protesters and bystanders. But for all its passion, it lacked (for obvious reasons) shape and context. That’s where journalism comes in.

And that’s where the Times came in. I found the Times’ online coverage riveting, which might seem odd when I say that the page layout was a dog’s dinner and the video support poor.

But where the Times scored was in combining the strengths of a simple multimedia platform, the valued (and actively encouraged) input of anyone with a mouth and a mobile, and someone who clearly knew how to pull the strings.

Even though the CoveritLive feed was belting along at half a dozen posts a minute, aggregating random comments, links, updates and pictures, I still felt I knew where I was in the story.

I know it’s always a team effort, but watching the bylines pop up, I’ve no hesitatation in awarding Times’ web development editor Lucia Adams the gold star. Her posts, clarifications, requests, links and chatty asides – pouring forth last night and still making Firefox sweat a day later – glued the whole thing together superbly.

A quick aside: if you’ve haven’t heard of CoveritLive, it is a sensational (and currently free) browser-based application for covering live events from football matches and festivals to riots.

It updates in real time, handles direct or remote picture, video, text and Twitter feeds, and allows instant comments through its user interface. I’m excited by the work going into CoveritLive by an inspirational group of social media developers based in Toronto – it has a great future.

But good tools are no use on their own. And Lucia Adams demonstrated how to combine the roles of reporter, information network manager, editor, facilitator and trusted ally. Here’s a couple of examples from the live feed this morning …

First, a nicely-worded news snippet:
10:08
Lucia Adams: House prices up, now the FTSE 100. This Obama guy’s good:
The FTSE 100 index of British blue chips rose 127 points to 4,082 in the first hour of trading, following on from strong showings in Asia and most of Europe. The last time the FTSE 100 index closed above 4,000 was 18 February.

Next, a straight-to-the-point video link:
2:02
Lucia Adams: Video: Police patrol the Thames to keep the world’s leaders safe

Now a snappy news update, sourced from Sky:
2:08
Lucia Adams: SKY: Officers have now left the scene of this morning’s raid at a London address

And finally, the answer to a question:
2:26
Comment From Norway: A new $1 trillion stimulus to the world economy could emerge from the G20″ Is this in the UK term of trillion or the American term of trillion?
2:29
Lucia Adams: Hi Norway, The Times style guide defines a trillion as follows:
Originally American for a thousand billion (or a million million, 1,000,000,000,000), and now accepted in British usage with that meaning, superseding the earlier British definition of a trillion as 1 followed by 18 zeros

See what I mean about a trusted ally? I don’t know Lucia. But she could well have a great future, too.

So what do I take from all this?

That we’ve come a long way, but still only scratching the surface. That we need simple, dynamic platforms to facilitate information flowing in both directions, at a pace dictated by content and events, not just an editor. That professional and citizen journalism does work hand in hand. And that the role of the journalist, as facilitator, guide, reporter and network manager, is more important than ever.