May 28th, 2010 by Wadds

Story telling using data from social networks

Human beings aren’t very good at interpreting numbers. That’s the view of Jer Thorph speaking at Thinking Digital in Gateshead yesterday.

Thorph describes himself as a software artist, writer, and educator. He’s also a contributing editor for Wired UK.

His session described how data could be represented in a visual format. That’s the premise behind his Just Landed project.

The application scans Twitter for mentions of “I just landed” or “I just arrived” and using MetaCarta adds Longitude and Latitude data.

The Just Landed application uses these data point to plot the flights taken by Twitter users over the course of several hours.

By contextualising data in this way Thorp explained that it’s easy to understand the story behind data – in this case the flights that Twitter users are taking.



We Feel Fine
takes a similar approach to plot instances of “I feel…” from social networks.

Thorph said that these same techniques could be used to predict the spread of a disease.

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May 20th, 2010 by Wadds

Heading to IPEX, Birmingham and Thinking Digital, Gateshead

I won’t have to travel as much as usual over the next week.

I’m speaking in sessions at IPEX (#IPEX) at the NEC in Birmingham today and Monday and am then heading to Thinking Digital (#TDC10) at The Sage in Gateshead from Tuesday to Thursday next week. The latter is a short commute from my home in Northumberland.

Do look me up if you’re at either event.

IPEX is a trade event for print, publishing and media where my contribution will be to debates on the future of printed media. With the iPad’s impending launch in the UK it couldn’t be timelier.

Thinking Digital will see 500 delegates descend for the third year on what has become the UK’s answer to US conferences such as SXSW, TED and PoP!Tech. Among the speakers for 2010 will be execs from Creative Commons, Futureworks, Ogilvy Group UK, Sony Pictures Digital and Wired.

I’ll be blogging interesting content from Thinking Digital here and on The (Newcastle) Journal’s NEOtherBusiness business web site.

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May 7th, 2010 by Wadds

University of Sunderland: Making sense of the media

Philip Young invited me to present to PR and journalism students at Sunderland University today on how the media is evolving online and responding to the emergence of social media, and what that means for the PR industry. I also covered some simple things that students can do to market themselves to future employers online.

Young is the co-author (with David Phillips) of Online Public Relations and is one of the leading academics in the UK researching and teaching on social media. Over the last five years he’s established his faculty at Sunderland as a centre of excellence.

We’re always keen to take up any opportunity to talk to undergraduates that are learning about traditional media, online and social media, and might want to pursue a career at Speed in the future.

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April 13th, 2010 by Wadds

Local newspaper engages with audience via social network: from Flickr to print

Newspapers have largely ignored social networks as a means to engage with their audience, seeking instead to force readers onto their web sites. But this example bucks the trend.

Remember the sunset shot that I took of the Cheviots in Northumberland a couple of weeks ago? Probably not but stick with me.

I posted the image to the Your Place Northumberland Flickr group that’s curated by the hyperlocal team at the Newcastle Journal. It made the Your Place hyperlocal web site. And now the Northumberland Journal Extra local newspaper.

I think that its an important step because it shows traditional media engaging with its audience and sourcing content via a social network.

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March 17th, 2010 by Wadds

Greenbang: Grumpy Environmentalist on renovation waste woe

My latest Greenbang Grumpy Environmentalist column has just been posted. It describes efforts to manage the waste on my family’s renovation project and discovers how truly rubbish we are at recycling and reuse in the UK.

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March 2nd, 2010 by Wadds

Readers as contributors

My local NCJ Media hyperlocal web site has run the Cheviot sunset image that I snapped on Monday after I posted it to its Flickr group.

Your Place is a series of 22 local websites bringing localised news to every town and village in Northumberland.

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January 27th, 2010 by Wadds

Update from the Grumpy Environmentalist

Greenbang has published an update on my family’s renovation project. We’re restoring a 300-year listed farmhouse in Northumberland and attempting to live by eco-principles.

It’s called the Grumpy Environmentalist because we started out two-years ago with the best intentions but are constantly tested by the need to balance historic restoration with eco-measures.

The latest article reports on wooden shutters and cling film as alternatives to double glazing, compromises we’re making over insulation and the restoration of an old cast iron kitchen range.

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January 22nd, 2010 by Wadds

Fowl play outside home office

The downside of having a home office in a farmyard is that occasionally you get unannounced visitors.

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January 13th, 2010 by Wadds

2010 election backwards step for social media in UK politics

Here’s a trend for 2010 – the UK election will not be a breakthrough event for the application of social media in politics. Vying candidates are already crawling over each other blogs and Twitter feeds for dodgy comments in a bid to shut them down.

Guido Fawkes reported last night on the first scalp of the forthcoming election.

“[…] This blog’s first casualty of the 2010 election cycle is Greg Stone, a LibDem councillor standing for parliament in Newcastle East against Labour’s Nick Brown.”

“Greg has withdrawn his candidature after a dossier of comments which he had made on this blog over a period of many months was circulated anonymously to the media.”

As Guido says “[Stone] won’t be the last politician brought down by a blog in the next few months…”

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January 11th, 2010 by Wadds

Why doesn’t mainstream media make more use of Flickr and YouTube for newsgathering?

With the UK gripped by arctic conditions last week there was an almost blanket appeal by almost media outlets for photos and videos.

Yet a visit to Flickr or YouTube would provide any researcher or journalist with a stream of Creative Commons output tagged by location that could be incorporated within their news reporting.

But to date mainstream media has made limited use of social network as a newsgathering source.

One exception is Trinity Mirror owned ncjMedia which has created a Flickr group that it uses as a source of reader images for The Journal’s Your Place Northumberland project.

So why doesn’t mainstream media make greater use of Flickr and YouTube for newsgathering?

Ged Carroll suggested to me over the weekend that mainstream media sourced user generated content (UGC) direct as it was a means of engaging directly with its audience.

Craig McGill said that he thought that mainstream media didn’t make greater use of UGC social networks as it is reluctant to credit third part sources – and that understanding of Creating Commons was limited.

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January 10th, 2010 by Wadds

This Too Will Pass: Half time at St. James’ Park

North East photo blogger Charles Bell posted this snap of me on his This Too Will Pass photo blog after I joined him for my first trip to St. James’ Park to see Newcastle beat Middlesbrough at the end of last year. He even bought me the scarf as a present.

He also accompanied my daughter Freya and I for the Whitley Bay Boxing Day Dip and shot this wonderful series of photos.

Thanks Charlie!

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January 8th, 2010 by Wadds

Introducing the Grumpy Environmentalist

The Greenbang team has kindly indulged me with an occasional column called the Grumpy Environmentalist in which I plan to write about my family’s efforts to renovate our 300-year farmhouse in the Northumberland National Park around eco-principals.

Grumpy Environmentalist because two-years in we’re struggling to balance eco with archaeology, bats, heritage, planning and cost.

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December 14th, 2009 by Wadds

Broadcast is booming

Here’s another contrary story about media audiences. Conventional wisdom says that people are switching off the TV and radio and moving to the web. Wrong.

The hard numbers tell a different story. Audiences are fragmenting from terrestrial broadcasts to digital broadcast. Where there are falls they are so small that they could be dismissed within a margin of error.

RAJAR

Radio listening in the UK is close to saturation with 89.2 per cent of the UK population tuning into the radio each week. Listener numbers are up year-on-year for Q3 at 45.7 million but down from 46.3 million in Q2 2009.

Listening to radio via a digital platform has risen 11 per cent year-on-year with 17 million people tuning in to radio via a digitally enabled set each week up from 15.9 million in Q3 2008.

There are no real surprises in the TV market.

BARBTV audiences are fragmenting from terrestrial TV to other platforms. Audiences are down almost one per cent year-on-year with the greatest falls seen by ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. BARB lumps non terrestrial channels into a catch all category called Other Viewing. This was the only category to see year-on-year growth (6.74 per cent).

The Ad Contrarian carried a typically brutal analysis in a recent post called The Death Watch Continues (via @nbishop).

“It’s been 5 years now. All the pundits and media geniuses have assured us TV is dead. All the web maniacs and new age marketing gurus have promised us it’s dead. All the social media snake oil salesmen and ad agency bozos have guaranteed us it’s dead. Apparently, the only people who aren’t convinced of this are the viewing public.”

It’s a different story in the newspaper industry of course.

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November 27th, 2009 by Wadds

Is the North East leading the way with new models for media?

If you’re interested in exploring business models for the future of media head to the North East of England.

That’s the call of Rick Waghorn who has written an excellent summary of the numerous projects in the region that are exploring aspects of content creation, delivery and financial models.

“If anyone wants to know where the future of the UK’s new media landscape will be forged and decided, it’ll be in the North-East of England. […] Whether by accident or design [it is a] very interesting place to be now media-wise,” says Waghorn.

Hyper local network
Trinity Mirror has created the Your Place network of 22 hyperlocal blogs fed by local bloggers and journalists the length and breadth of Northumberland. I’m an occasional contributor to my local site in the Rothbury area

Meanwhile Josh Halliday (@JoshHalliday), an ambitious journalism student at the University of Sunderland, has launched SR2, a stylishly produced site dedicated to reporting about the SR2 postcode area of Sunderland. He is aiming to go ad funded to cover costs

Ad model
Trinity Mirror has recently opened up its Your Place project to an ad network called Addiply. It enables businesses to set up an ad campaign for a specific geographical audience for £5 per week.

Pay walls
The Northumberland Gazette is one of six weekly regionals in the Johnston Press stable that will disappear behind a paywall in a trial that starts on Monday. Will readers sign-up and pay online? I doubt it, but it will be interesting to watch.

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November 19th, 2009 by Wadds

How to turn your Twitter network into an Amazon affiliate business

Here’s an application of Twitter that will generate hard cash for you. Amazon has made its affiliate programme Twitter-friendly.

Members of the Amazon Associates programme can share products with their network by clicking on a Twitter icon within the affiliate menu bar or stripe. This generates a tweetable message and unique URL.

amazon

When people click on the link and make a qualifying sale you’ll earn a referral fees via the affiliate programme – the entry level is typically 5 per cent of the value of a sale.

You can foresee less wise individuals spamming their networks with inappropriate messages. But abuse will quickly be stamped out by using block and unfollow functions.

Used with care in conjunction with other online marketing efforts Amazon’s initiative could be a neat way of monetising content.

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