Paul notes that the Guardian uses tools like del.icio.us, Google gadgets, Yahoo Pipes, and others to bring more content to their readers, and do so without having to develop their own software.
None of them owned or built by the Guardian. But all of them do the job required, and well - for nothing. Culturally, this is a hard thing for many news organisations to do (”But we can’t control it!”), but increasingly, it’s something they’re learning tends to work better than unwieldy bespoke software. It’s cheaper - and importantly in these times, much, much quicker.
lelapin _ on 02 Nov 08supplement to highlighted part: "E-mail often gets blamed for all of this "extra work," but the reality is, these tasks and activities won't go away simply by switching to other technologies like wikis, IM, or intranets. Moreover, these tasks often result in new value for the enterprise and need to be recognized as "important work" not "extra work."
