Ticker tapes were developed in the late 1880s for transmitting stock price information over telegraph lines. Nowadays we see electronic ticker tapes on the sides of large buildings or TV screens displaying current news headlines.

On intranets, ticker tapes can be used for:

• emergency information when major disruptions occur such as storms or branch shutdowns
• notification of IT system outages both planned and unexpected
• hooks or teases for news stories or content
• frequently changing organisational information such as share prices or call volumes

The most common way ticker tapes are implemented on intranet home pages is for emergency information or IT alerts.

Ticker tapes are used by some of the biggest news organisations in the world. For example the BBC news site includes a ticker of the latest news.

[April article by Catherine Grenfell, read the full article]