Is there a name for different levels of content 'freshness'?

[Carmen Brion]

Hi, 

I wonder if any of you can help me. I'm interested in whether there is an established terminology for the types of content in a newspaper website, particularly for:

• content that is relevant for users because it's actually new (up-to-the-minute/day) 
  
• content that is relevant for users even long time after its release (e.g. film reviews, food recipes).

Any help with this very much appreciated!

Thanks

[Rick Yagodich]

I've not heard of a generic term for the "new" stuff. I've described it quite a few ways, depending on the context. Timely is likely as good a term as any. Though there are so many nuanced sub-categories of time-relevant and/or fresh content that it is hard to have a single term to cover them all. Is it really new? Or is it just newly released? Is it newly relevant, but has existed a while?

For the other type, the most common term I've heard is "evergreen." Of course, even that is not entirely accurate, as much long-term content is actually seasonal.

Of course, the far more meaningful term, which cuts diagonally across both those categories, is "relevant?"

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[Lisa Moore]

Hi Carmen:

Interesting question these days, with the lines blurring between content types all the time :)

As Rick said, it’s now more about what’s relevant to a reader, and I’d add when and where.

However, going back to my journalism roots, I’d call anything timely and factual “news”. If it’s been written by a journalist or independent person (i.e. not someone in the marketing department), it’s more readily defined as news.

If the content has been created by the marketing team, it’s more often “branded content” or native advertising (the advertorials of yore).

And yes, “evergreen” is a fairly common term for content that’s got a longer shelf-life than breaking news. However, in the journalism world, that content would still originate with a journalist. For example, feature articles, in all their varieties, are not news per se, but they have value and can prove engaging reads for people long after their original publication date.

There’s also the maintenance issue – with news content, you expect that to appear and evaporate quite quickly from the feed. It might be available in some sort of archive, but you would be under no obligation to update it – the follow-on news items that come after will do that. With evergreen content, you’ll need to assign a lifespan – can it sit on the site for 3 months? 6 months? Forever? How often does someone need to check it/update it? And do the analytics suggest that after X amount of time, it still has value? If not, is a process in place to ensure it’s removed?

Hope that helps :)

--Lisa

[Carmen Brion]

Thanks Lysa and Rick, your comments help a lot. 

Lysa your questions around evergreen content are also food for thought. Probably having some insight from reader expectations could help to decide on lifespan and what happens after it expires and also where it goes. Do they still want to be able to access it or they prefer to have it removed? 

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[Hilary Marsh]

Hi Carmen,

The analytics from your current website can probably inform your decisions about how long your readers find various content types to be relevant.

That said, some newspapers choose to save their news articles as well as evergreen content for longer periods of time, if they are a publication likely to be referenced as a primary source of content. If that is the case for you, you’ll want to spend time and effort creating filtered search results so users can sort information by date.

Best,

Hilary

Hilary Marsh

President and Chief Strategist, Content Company

312-806-7854  |  hil...@hilarymarsh.com

[Steven Wilson-Beales]

Hi Gang,

I'd use terms like 'trending' or 'latest' depending on the objective and how much resource you have as a team. 

I'd also use term 'evergreen features'

All the best

Steve

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