Where’s the new stuff?
Is there a lack of new online communication services coming on stream – or perhaps it’s all iPhone app related advances instead?
Following on from a conversation earlier this week I’ve been doing a bit of an audit of services I subscribe to and have come to the conclusion that there’s not much must-have new stuff that’s surfaced in the past few months.
Or maybe it’s that I’m not finding them. If s o what am I missing?
At one stage, about 18 months ago, there seemed to be something new coming on stream very day. OK, some didn’t even stick long enough to make it onto my bookmarks – anyone still doing Plurk or Brightkite? – but others were persevered with.
Updating the contacts page on this blog, I’ve now removed some listings of places I no longer find essential – but there’s very few additions.
What came in;
* Skype: Has become properly useful with my mobile and remote working patterns.
* Qik : Reliable and invaluable mo-blogging tool.
* AudioBoo: Only just added but expected to stick.
* FriendFeed: Still not an everyday, but starting to see its value, particularly as a live-blogging tool.
What went out;
* The second Twitter account I had been using for live-blogging in Manchester. All Twitter activity will now be consolidated @foodiesarah.
* Bambuser. Was in regular use until the service failed at a particularly important live-blogging moment.
* Utterli: Has been utterly pointless since the UK phone number service ceased.
* Seesmic: Wasn’t a regular haunt although, of all the above, this is one I’m keeping an open mind to have a return to.
Any recommendations or suggestions of new stuff gratefully consumed.
links for 2009-06-25
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Most people could only dream of seeing the modern seven wonders of the world in their lifetime. But one Manchester businesswoman has set herself the challenge to race around the globe to visit them all in seven days.
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Where is everybody? Anecdotally and experimentally, they've all gone to Facebook, and especially Twitter. At least with Twitter, one can search for comments via backtweets.com – though it's still quite rare for people to make a comment on a piece in a tweet; more usually it's a "retweet", echoing the headline.
links for 2009-06-22
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The live blog is print’s equivalent of live TV; it is the way to cover a story such as this: process journalism over product journalism.
links for 2009-06-20
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Newspaper Web sites do well, with 41 percent of respondents describing them as important sources of news. Facebook scored 10 percent; Twitter scored 4 percent.
links for 2009-06-18
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Interestingly, the itemised bill for Jacqui Smith’s husbands late night viewing has been censored. (The Times have been trying to find it). So if it wasn’t for good old fashioned journalism, that little indiscretion would never have been caught. Which is precisely the point of why all these black boxes on forms are there. To protecting the MP’s embarrassment, not for their physical security.
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Your blog is a journey. And you have already begun that journey. That’s a useful start, isn’t it?
If you want to turn a corner from just reporter or commentator to expert, then you have to stand up and proclaim yourself as someone unusually good at something and then demonstrate it over and over again.
Echo office sign tells familiar story
The hand written sign on the (shut) door of this newspaper district office says the Northern Echo reporter for Richmond has been re-located in Barnard Castle – that’s 25 miles away.
While not an unusual sight at the moment, after all newspaper offices are closing up and down the country, the geography involved in rural areas such as this on the County Durham/ North Yorkshire border shows up the issue on the ground – how likley is it that anyone would travel quite so far to pop in and see a reporter?
There is a mobile phone number provided and the word ‘temporarily’ appears in brackets but I found it a sad sight – it’s not that many years ago that I was the Echo’s news editor based at the Darlington head office – and then we had one, or sometimes two, reporters based here. That was in addition to the office being the base for the sister weekly reporter.
Different times indeed.
links for 2009-06-17
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"We identified a base network of approximately 35,000 active blogs, created a network map of the 6,000 most connected blogs, and with a team of Arabic speakers hand coded 4,000 blogs. The goal for the study was to produce a baseline assessment of the networked public sphere in the Arab Middle East, and its relationship to a range of emergent issues, including politics, media, religion, culture, and international affairs."
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There's some tips in here, particularly points;
4. Find out what the community wants in real face-to-face meetings, not focus groups. Then do what they want.
5. Use pro-am methods. Include community-contributed content edited and vetted by pros.
6. Smart multimedia. Don't do it just to do it. Use the right medium to tell the right story.
links for 2009-06-16
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Click through to http://www.twitterplan.co.uk … enter my Twitter name and postcode… decide that the planning news that matters most to me is anything within an 800-metre radius… tick the ‘follow’ button for PlanBot and there we go….
Job done. And three cheers to all concerned
links for 2009-06-14
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ipadio allows you to broadcast from any phone to the internet, live. Phone blog, commentate, collect audio data, record and update the world or simply let your mates know what you’re doing – ipadio is integrated with Twitter & Facebook.
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