News Lab

NEWS Lab

NEWS lab conical flask logo by Andre Casaclang
Type of site
News website
Owner News Limited
Created by News Digital Media
Website http://lab.news.com.au
Launched November 2006
Current status Offline

NEWS lab was the research and development section of the NEWS.com.au website, based in Sydney, Australia.

Overview

The lab lets users comment and rate a number of internet products being developed by NEWS.com.au. The collated feedback is used to assist with alterations to the products' design or function before being released to other websites within the group.

The 14 November 2006 launch coincided with World Usability Day 2006, a global event designed to raise users awareness in regards to product usability.

The lab was closed and the URL deactivated in 2007.

Company Structure

NEWS Lab is the R&D section of NEWS.com.au, the Australian breaking news website run by News Digital Media. The lab concept was created by Charles Brewer and Graeme Merrall and managed by Sigrid Kirk, Group Publisher, News Digital Media.

News Digital Media (known as News Interactive between 1998 and 2006) is the Digital Media division of News Limited, the Australian arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

Richard Freudenstein, formally COO of BSkyB, was announced as the Chief Executive of News Digital Media on 10 July 2006. He formally took up this position on 10 October 2006.

Lab Products

The 4 products launched with the lab were:

NEWS Map: a Google map mash-up of NEWS.com.au stories placed onto a global map. The data is processed via MetaCarta to extract Longitude and Latitude and then a KML file produced

NEWS Cloud - a tag cloud created using zoomclouds.com API to extract the keyword from the last 7 days' worth of NEWS.com.au stories

NEWS River - a formatted page designed to be viewed on a Blackberry, 3G or next generation mobile device. The concept of the river came from internet developer Dave Weiner.

NEWS Widget - a Yahoo! Konfabulator generated downloadable desktop widget powered by 5 NEWS.com.au RSS feeds, 1 feed each from Foxsport.com.au and AustralianIT.com.au

See also

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