Switched on Media has been successful in making the Smart50 list for 2010. We are stoked by this recognition and humbled to be listed among other great organisations. Whilst we don’t currently know where we have come in the list, number 1 or number 50, we will have to wait until all will be revealed on the awards night (September 16th) in Melbourne.

For now, you will have to be content with the 2009 Smart50 list to see previous awarded companies.

What is CNN? Courtesy of blaugh.com

There has been a lot of discussion recently about what news will look like in 2010, especially with Murdoch announcing he will begin charging for some NewsCorp content. I wanted to throw a few ideas around about how I think it will continue to evolve – feel free to disagree!

1. Even more targeted and personalised: we keep gaining more and more control over the news we consume. Consumers, not editors, will continue to decide what news is through their RSS feeds, news alerts, link-sharing sites or notifications from friends or colleagues.

2. Instantaneous: the real-time phenomenon has meant that news often breaks on Twitter, for example the Hudson River plane crash earlier this year that was first reported on Twitter. The speed news travels has increased exponentially, gone are the days when the morning and night news bulletin had the same content!

3. Social: We are now both active consumers and producers of news from the way we share it, react to it and comment on it. For example, live events will often have real-time social network commentary and major news stories will be analysed by many users. News seems to be one element which is bringing people together on social networks and creating valued social communities.

4. Paid? It’s hard to know whether this will happen – I don’t want to underestimate Murdoch but I think it will be difficult to start making consumers pay for something they have had for free for so long. I guess it will depend on whether consumers can find suitable alternative news sources that don’t charge for content.

Hi there. My name’s Wai Chim and I’ve just joined Switched on Media as a Journalist/Editor. I guess since they consider me to be the writer, I get to write my own introduction, although I’m sure if I had asked nicely Jye would have done it for me. Either way, it’s great to be here.

Just a little about myself, I originally herald from New York City and have been living and working here in Sydney for three years. Before joining Switched on Media, I was working as the online editor for an environmental website and did an assortment of freelance copywriting work – if you ever need to know anything about “battle-ready” katana blades, I can give you a good run down. I’ve also published articles in a number of print publications, but my preference is really for online.

I’m really excited about joining the team and working with Alex and Jye on some new ideas and opportunities. Everyone’s been very warm and welcoming and I can’t wait to get into a good game of Ping Pong (which I will no doubt lose very very quickly!)

A “Big” update, yet largely unnoticed, is that yesterday Google started testing a larger search box on safari.  Who cares? Well Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President of Search Product and User Experience announced this as they key to making Google even “easier and fun” to use.  I wonder how many people at Google worked on this project….:-)

Google have a new product in their pipeline which will soon be available in Google labs. Its code name is Flipper and it appears that it is a new visual method of ‘flipping’ through Google News.

We haven’t been able to actually login to the service yet, testing is currently only available to computers on the Google network. It appears that you can browse by sections, as well as sources and keyword searching. Some other filters such as “Recommended” and “Most popular” are in place, whether this makes Google News any more useful is another question. Google are still way behind Yahoo! when it comes to news content.

Anyway keep your eyes out for Flipper soon and let us know your thoughts on the new functionality.