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.
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.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=8ebb725d-5d1e-4a03-92a7-6baba4e97b44)
Fowl play outside home office
The downside of having a home office in a farmyard is that occasionally you get unannounced visitors.
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“Greg has withdrawn his candidature after a dossier of comments which he had made on this blog over a period of many months was circulated anonymously to the media.”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…”
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
TV 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.
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.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=da27cc93-e147-4db6-b9ef-7a620ab8738c)
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.
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.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=39893e9d-3567-45ae-a099-6241f0486105)
Watched the TV show, bought the Airfix model kit
I wonder how many people hunted down an Airfix Spitfire kit to build with their kids after being inspired by James May’s Toy Stories: Airfix.
Twitter stream as warm-up at Eddie Izzard’s Stripped gig
- Image via Wikipedia
Beg, borrow or steal a ticket for Eddie Izzard’s Stripped tour. He’s just announced extra dates. I was lucky enough to be in the audience at the Metro Arena, Newcastle last Friday.
Instead of a warm up act, tweets to @eddieizzard are displayed on two huge screens on either side of the stage, overlaid on top of images from a video camera that picked out members of the audience. As a means of engaging the audience it worked incredibly well.
During the gig Izzard stitched together his views of creationism, evolution and the development of human civilisation, to create a knockout two hour show with moments of absolute genius.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=3df4ccc1-00c6-4904-aac0-4deb15dc5c24)
NUFC renames stadium sportsdirect.com @ St James’ Park
It would be an incredibly brave brand that took on the ire of Newcastle United fans and bought the rights to rename the ground or of course an opportunist one that wanted to buy the loyalty of fans by retaining the St James’ Park moniker.
Mike Ashley has tried to do both and true to form has spectacularly screwed-up. BBC Newcastle has just reported that the new name of the stadium is sportsdirect.com @ St James’ Park after the name of Ashley’s own shop.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c55c331c-34f8-4933-bf2e-0785de217837)
Local media mute on boycott of Newcastle home games
- Image via Wikipedia
Newcastle United Football Club owner Mike Ashley is doing his damndest to secure his place as the pantomime villain in the city’s Theatre Royal production of Cinderella this year.
His on, off, on sale of the club is off again. And now his latest idea to raise cash is to flog off the naming rights to St James’ Park.
Newcastle fans are rightly pissed off. It’s a state of affairs that is rapidly becoming business as usual. Ashley’s mismanagement of the club and its relationship with supporters is well documented.
It’s not possible to live in or around Newcastle and not take an interest football. St James’ Park is at the very heart of city both physically and emotionally.
This is a Championship Club that regularly has a home gate of more than 40,000. That’s more people than attend most Premiership games. More importantly by my reckoning it’s close to £1 million revenue for the club.
The solution is simple. Fans need to hit Ashley where it hurts and start boycotting home games. It could be a superb campaigning issue for local media that would guarantee the attention of readers and provide an outlet for the fury of fans.
But so far both The Journal and The Evening Chronicle remain mute. I’ve even baited the Supporters Trust via Twitter but to no end.
And so the farce at St James’ Park – or whatever the stadium ends up being called – will almost certainly continue. As the father and son writing duo Mike and Tom Chaplin documented in their play at the end of last season – You Couldn’t Make It Up.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=6cbafba4-0341-4871-9888-995cdb01a4db)
