Internet consultant Martin Belam reviews the Web 2.0 features and implementation of the online versions of The Daily Express, The Times, The Telegraph, The Mirror, The Daily Mail, The Independent , The Sun and The Guardian. This should be mandatory reading for all editors and execs as most newspapers have quite some way to go here.

A general complaint from Belam on newspaper blogs: "Newspapers seem to have grasped that the blog format can be a compelling one with the right content, and that good blogs can act as incoming link bait, but on the whole the British press seems unable to have grasped how linking out is just as an important part of blog culture".

That, however, is a big step forward from Norway, where newspapers have not grasped that whole blog thing at all: they have them, the journalist-written ones, but one is led to believe they have them purely because they think they should. The fact that VG, Norway's biggest (tabloid) newspaper, has a column in its print version entitled 'Blog' says it all - how bloggy is that? But this is a post in itself (note that I've only looked at the national papers, not the regional and local ones).

Belam also finds many strange RSS set-ups, which is one of the things that frustrates me the most: when a paper hides its RSS-feeds or only offer incomplete feeds (more on why here).

Readers' blogs from The Telegraph
Meanwhile, in the spirit of Web 2.0, The Daily Telegraph recently unveiled My Telegraph, a readers' blog platform similar those Norwegian tabloids VG and Dagbladet have been successful with. It's an interesting development, but I'm afraid I'll have to agree with Dadblog (via Martin Stabe) here:

Why would I choose to host my blog with the Telegraph? Why would I want to make that kind of direct association between my personal acts of self-expression and another piece of media - a piece of media which comes with a whole lorryload of semantic and political baggage, a piece of media which actually represents something. It seems to me entirely logical that the Telegraph (or any media firm) would feel it has permission to go into this space, but I can’t imagine any circumstance where I personally would host my personal blog on someone else’s piece of media.