A regional publisher which held a “Dragon’s Den” style contest among its staff has launched a new online archive containing “everything you need to know” about its patch.

Trinity Mirror put out a national call to staff to come forward with bright ideas in a bid to find “the next big thing.”

The competition was won by web developer Louise Midgley, who works for Trinity’s North-East division ncjmedia, publisher of Newcastle’s Evening Chronicle, Journal and Sunday Sun titles.

Louise, 28, has already received a cash prize and, in true Dragon’s Den style, will also win a future share of any profits from her idea.

Her winning idea – which is now live – was wikinortheast.co.uk – an online archive covering all aspects of the North-East region.

A wiki is a collaborative website or collection of webpages that allows users to create and edit their own content. The reference site Wikipedia is the best-known example.

But in addition, wikinortheast.co.uk also features up to 12 years’ worth of digital archives documenting the area’s events and people that were not previously being used on ncjmedia’s websites.

The company’s digital archive dates back to 1995 and also includes articles from papers such as the Gateshead Post and the Pink, which have now ceased to exist.

The ultimate aim of the project is to create an ongoing, up-to-date encyclopaedic reference tool for the North East of England, written by people from, or with a connection to, the region.

The site is arranged into seven channels: art and culture, business, environment, history and heritage, regional affairs, science and technology, and sport.

Paul Robertson, editor of the Evening Chronicle and editorial director of Trinity Mirror North East said: “We were looking for an innovative idea from anyone in the organisation to take from concept through to launch. Louise did extremely well to be chosen against some stiff opposition – winning a cheque and a profit-share in the venture.

“We have an amazing archive of material on all manner of subjects but we also have an army of readers in the region across our titles who have their own mines of information which they now have an opportunity to share through wikinortheast.

“If the amount of work put in is anything to go by it deserves to be a success and the site has already attracted positive comments even though it has only just gone live.

“Hopefully it will encourage even more staff to come forward with their own ideas next year.”

Comments

JD (10/10/2008 13:49:22)
A local Wiki. Oh please. Hardly groundbreaking is it…
…didn’t the Derby Evening Telegraph do something like this with a local history site not long ago? Wasn’t ‘wiki’ the buzz-word 2 years ago?
Shirt buttons to Granny Bonds, no one uses it. People want it easy, wikis are the devil to work out if you not the most Internet savvy.

Marcus (10/10/2008 22:51:55)
If you visit the site like I have you will find that this is not just a wiki, from what I gather. This looks like a unique way of displaying old archived material (12 years archived) whilst allowing readers to leave their views. If I were you rather than making assumptions on the title then do delve deeper into the content and functionality of the site.
I would agree most wikis are hard to use but from what I see this looks rather simple.

Sam (11/10/2008 17:20:47)
Surely the Wikipedia for the North East is, erm, Wikipedia?

JD (13/10/2008 12:31:06)
“a unique way of displaying old archived material (12 years archived) whilst allowing readers to leave their views”, so, not a dated old wiki regurgitating ideas used by other regional papers at all then? Phew, that’s luck, I’m sure it’ll take off like a rocket since you put it like that, sheesh, cutting edge, my mistake…

BC (13/10/2008 14:35:33)
Good luck to wikinortheast.co.uk, but making a local wiki isn’t really what could be called an ‘innovative’ project.
I agree with Sam too, why go to wikinortheast when you could people can get information from the normal wikipedia?
What will it do better?
Unless they get a really dedicated community of people contributing to the sites it will be a devil to keep going.
Its a common falling of newspaper websites that they try to ape well-established sites rather than looking to create their own totally unique ideas.
The wiki idea has been tried by http://www.wikikernow.co.uk for months now..
really its as innovative as having a blogging section.
The regional digital media industry really is two or three years behind at the moment and it needs a quantum leap to catch up with what the rest of the new media industry is doing.
Perhaps it needs a division of newspapers from new media to truly catch up with the big players.