Trinity Mirror’s data journalism website Ampp3d part of ‘continuous experiment’ says product director Coles

Trinity Mirror's data journalism website Ampp3d part of 'continuous experiment' says product director Coles

Trinity Mirror has continued its run of innovative web launches with the creation this week of daily data journalism website Ampp3d.

The site has a five-strong editorial team and follows the success of its sister site UsvsTh3m, which reached seven million unique visitors last month, a 600 percent increase on September when it hit one million visitors for the first time.

Ammp3d will “tackle more serious topics using stats and data”, according to Malcolm Coles, Trinity Mirror’s product director.

“The site aims to explore both the day’s news agenda and a range of topics that people passionately care about.”

On his website, editor Martin Belam explained the concept behind the name: "I rather like the inference in Ampp3d that you are excited by the stories, 'I’m amped about that', or that the site is amplifying the news." The site also needed a name that was available as a .co.uk domain, a .com domain, and as a URL and username on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat and Google+. Swapping the ‘E’ for the 3 made them all available, Belam said.

Ammp3d covers all the same areas as a traditional newspaper, from politcs and economics to sports and entertainment, but uses charts and numbers to tell the stories.

In its first week it has so far charted MPs' pay rises in comparison to other Britons' jobs, identified that a new housing claim is made every five minutes, and found that the true cost of commuting by rail can be as much as 17 percent of someone's salary.

Regular features of the site will include chart of the day and number of the day.

According to Coles its success will hinge on making content that is popular for social networks and that people will want to share.

“We learnt with UsVsTh3m, with the political satire games, people share them on social media because it says something about themselves and their own politics without them coming across as a politics bore.”

“Ampp3d aims to tap into that same thing that allows people to share something that is accurate and fact based and also has an angle to share something about yourself.”

Coles added that Ampp3d does not use the same template as day-to-day publishing for a reason.

“This is a continuous experiment, and I think that news organisations that aren't continuously trying to experiment are increasingly going to struggle.”

Last month, Trinity Mirror launched a seven-day Buzzfeed-style website for its Sunday newspaper the Sunday People.