Five on Friday - five fabulous web tools of the week (05.06.09)

June 5th, 2009

Hi guys

Me again, your five on Friday sub. Your usual Five on Friday host will be back next week, but until then let’s take a look at this week’s selection.

First off, we have:

1. Photoxpress - If, like me, you use images to spice up your posts and comments, this free photo finding tool will come in very useful. It’s a quality image bank providing you with a vast and legal image library for both personal and professional use.

2. Almost.at -This tool allows you to follow people at real world events in realtime. Simply choose an event from the list provided and track the conversations and pictures. Content will be displayed in realtime but you can pause as required. Currently in beta but a very nice idea.

3. Moogo - The time when you had to shell out thousands of pounds for a website has long since passed, and yes this isn’t the only option to get a free website, but it’s easy to use, quick and offers some nice features such as web stores, blogs, photo albums and mobile pages. It’s aimed at small companies, associations and individuals, so give it a go, even if it’s just for an event or service that you are launching.

4. TypingWeb - Embarrassed about your typing speed? Still only use two fingers to bash out your documents? Come on, everyone would like to type a bit faster and this app could be the help you’ve been looking for. It’s a free online typing tutor for typists of all ages and skills.

5. AlmostMeet - This is a very useful service for collaborative group meetings, allowing everyone to talk and see each other, using peer-to-peer technology, which also enables visibility of participant’s desktops, whiteboards and file sharing. And of course, it’s free!

Posted in Blog, Blogging, Digital communications, Digital media, Emerging technology, Social media, Trends and research, Useful resources | No Comments »

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I’ll follow who I like on Twitter, thanks!

May 13th, 2009

Our guest academic, Lorraine Warren follows up a post earlier this week on her Twitter journey. This is Dr Warren’s fourth post for us and we hope the conversation continues! Dr Warren is Director of Postgraduate Education and senior lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the School of Management at the University of Southampton.

In an  earlier post I commented that a really important feature of Twitter for me is that I can see debates and conflicts taking place that show different points of view evolving in the field.

Of course, a series of exchanges in 140 characters and a cluster of links are unlikely to give the full picture – these are fast-moving, conversational interchanges that indicate where tensions lie, rather than fully-fledged rational arguments.  Yet for me, this is invaluable in sensing what’s going on, what issues are important to people and where the next questions that shape my research might lie.

Inevitably, sometimes useful interchanges arising from different, but quite legitimate, points of view degenerate into personal feuds and name-calling, but that’s part of life generally, and like at a conference, or party, you can either walk away, join in, or maybe say ‘hey, folks….’ if it starts to get too nasty!

I saw an instance of this last month in my Twitterstream.  As I only followed one of the parties involved, I didn’t really understand what was going on at first, but I could see that a technology correspondent, @YYY, from one of the mainstream UK papers had posted something on his blog about a writer, @ZZZ that others found offensive.

This didn’t surprise me, as I have seen @YYY post some controversial stuff in the past, perhaps reflecting more right-wing views than my other connections are comfortable with.  By the time I looked, the post seemed to have been taken down, so I was on the point of forgetting about it, when I received a Direct Message (DM) in my email from a third party, @XXX who appears very popular and well-respected in the social media space: “why do you follow @YYY..? this is a slanderous pop at @ZZZ”.

A link to a jpg file of the now-vanished blog was included, that turned out to be a short piece of childish name-calling, referring to an ongoing dialogue indicating bad blood between the two.  Looking at the Twitter interchange between @YYY and @ZZZ, it seemed like they were both standing up for themselves quite well without any help needed from me.  So, I responded by DM to @XXX that overall, it was important for me to see a mix of views, and in this case, perhaps the hue and cry that had gone on had contributed to the piece being withdrawn, surely a good thing. 

That was on April 27, and I haven’t heard from @XXX again, although I have had quite a few pleasant interchanges with him in the past both in the Twitterstream and by DM.

@XXX’s intervention raised some interesting issues about the norms and values set within and by the Twitter community.  Did the message mean that I should explain myself for following @YYY, perhaps engage with the debate publicly (though it was nothing to do with me, and was by then, it seemed, over) or stop following @YYY?

Further, how I had been identified so quickly as a follower of @YYY, as I’d never interacted with him on Twitter except as a follower.  Why was I being singled out? Why was @XXX taking on this role?  It would be silly to over-interpret one DM, and I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.

Following doesn’t mean complicity or agreement, and if a tweet bothers me, I’ll deal with the author direct.  It’s hard to see how Twitter will grow, and whether antagonistic factions and clusters will emerge.  I hope not!

Posted in Blog, Blogging, Social media, Social networking | No Comments »

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Who should I follow on Twitter?

May 11th, 2009

 

A welcome return for our guest academic, Lorraine Warren. This Dr Warren’s third post and we look forward to more! Dr Warren is Director of Postgraduate Education and senior lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the School of Management at the University of Southampton.

 

 

As a Twitter enthusiast, people often ask me how I got going, how did I ‘know’ who to follow, to make it worthwhile spending time in this space.  Of course, they hope to repeat my strategies, to make Twitter as valuable to them, as it has become to me.  In some ways it’s a difficult question to answer.

If I look at what I actually did, it was an unplanned, serendipitous acquisition of around 350 people through a variety of processes and techniques, mainly follow-backs, recommendations from colleagues at work, and some simple detective work around who the people I liked were following.

 Sometimes the real and virtual worlds crossed over, as there is a social side to Twitter too.  I met (and now follow) the Liberate Media guys through Twestival, a Twitter-generated meet-up that took place in Brighton, one of many spin-off social gatherings.  

Interestingly, I’ve never used the Search facility in Twitter to look for people, as keyword search seems a little bit mechanical to me.

Looking back though, there are some themes that have guided my selections.  As an academic with research interests in innovation, particularly in the digital/creative industries, I need to be able to look ahead at what thought leaders and key influencers in this fast-changing and dynamic field are doing.

I use Twitter to check out the periphery, to see what people in the industry are working on, which way the wind is blowing and what current debates are setting the agenda.  Obviously, I follow practitioners and consultants in the industry (both creative industries and systems developers), mainly in the UK, but in Europe and the US too.

I also follow journalists, especially technical correspondents in quality newspapers, some Silicon Valley pundits, and a smattering of MPs.  A key aspect is that I also follow people who disagree with me (and each other) – for me this is about the debates, tensions and conflicts that drive change, challenging my views, sometimes reinforcing them, and sometimes changing them too.

Twitter really has added value for me, and I cannot think of any other way in which I could keep current so effectively.  And I guess I must add value for others in return, as I have a high proportion of mutual relationships.  Of course, I also follow fellow academics working in the social media space, and as a result of initial Twitter contacts, am currently working on two conference papers and a book chapter with a cluster of people at Birmingham City and Huddersfield universities whom I’ve never even met.

For me this organic process has been really enjoyable, I like the uncertainty of never knowing what or who might beam in next, and I can see that with some slightly different decisions, my trajectory could well have been quite different.

I am aware though that some people find this uncertainty a bit of a challenge in the early stages, and in some cases leave early without having found anything interesting or that adds value, as they are unable to find what they want.

I expect as Twitter matures, it may well become more and more structured as groups form, and also better understood, with a variety of applications generating information about the user base.

Certainly, that will make entry less daunting, and more accessible and inclusive; but it would be a shame if the spontaneous connections that make Twitter so exciting became less significant.  For me, that was the fun part!

Posted in Blogging, Digital communications, Emerging technology, Social media, Social networking | No Comments »

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#PRdebate: Can PR step up to the digital challenge?

April 22nd, 2009

I attended the NMK - What happens to online PR debate last night, and it was a very interesting and worthwhile session. Big thanks to Ian Delaney and Jenny Tyler at NMK for organising.

The session was structured as an Oxford-style debate on the issue of ‘has the PR industry lost its capability to lead clients in a New Media Landscape?’, with Roger Warner of Content and Motion and Antony Mayfield from iCrossing in the ‘yes’ camp, and Stuart Bruce of Wolfstar and James Warren of Weber Shandwick in the ‘no’ camp.  Mike Nutley, editor-in-chief at NMA chaired the discussion.

I should also point out that a great many of the agencies that ‘get’ online PR and social media were there too. However, there was a real lack of client-side attendance, which meant there was a heavy bias towards the PR angle and argument, which was always going to win the debate in such a crowd. Please read Roger Warner’s write up for a different and more digitally-focused point of view.

As you can tell by the panel, it was a meeting of strong opinions, but i was surprised not so much by the differences discussed on the night, but more by the similarities. Obviously, the two sides had differing opinions on many of the issues, but overall I felt the vision for the future of online PR, digital communications, call it what you will, were similar. Let me make it clear that both sides made a good argument for digital or PR to lead clients in a New Media Landscape, but what i took from it was that it will in fact be a mixture of skills coming from both sides that will win out, something that i totally agree with.

For exampIe, I agree with the ‘yes’ debaters that you need specific skill sets in an online environment, and that not all PRs have this, but I also agree with the ‘no’ side that the art of communications, not the way in which we reach our audience, is the key factor.

From a personal point of view, i also found it difficult to choose a side. I come from a traditional PR background, but what we’ve been trying to do with Liberate Media over the last three years is very far from traditional. We are part of a newer breed of PR agencies that are trying to break free from the shackles of traditional agencies in terms of our set up, approach and skill sets. So from that point I agree traditional agencies cannot lead unless they bite the bullet and evolve. But from a communications stand point, i also believe this blend of skills, be it PR, digital or journalism will be the future not either - or.

This part of the debate was also flavoured with the point that PR has become media relations in many cases, and this is why digital must lead as media relations alone is not relevant. This has been an issue, but taking the PR panel members as an example, it’s certainly not true in their cases, and i would argue to a greater degree that more of an emphasis has been put on strategy and communications development in the leading PR agencies over recent years to move away from this problem. And at the top, i don’t think this is a major issue.

So, where does that leave me? Well, if by ‘the PR industry’ you mean traditional agencies or ‘the dinosaurs that run PR who don’t get the significance of digital’, as James Warren put it, then i agree PR has already lost. But if we’re talking about the growing band of smart new agencies and the intelligent approach of the larger  agencies of which a few were represented last night, then no. These sorts of comms professionals know they still have a lot to learn, but they are building digital skill sets by hiring in experienced individuals or looking beyond the boundaries of what would traditionally be PR. Yes, the social media specific agencies and digital agencies have a lead in understanding the environment, but they also need to skill up in terms of comms strategy and delivery. Something that they have also been doing over the last few years.

Who will win? Well, it’s simple really, the winners will be the agencies that get this blend of skills right, be they digital or PR in original orientation.

The debate continues on Twitter: #PRDebate

Posted in Blog, Blogging, Content, Digital communications, Digital media, PR, Social media | 2 Comments »

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Trade press concerns about blogging

April 17th, 2009

The digital marketing trade press has embraced blogging to varying degrees. While Haymarket has recently relaunched many of its magazine websites and simultaneously stepped-up the intensity of its blogging, other publishing houses are yet to rollout blogs for their flagship titles. Magazines such as NMA and Marketing Week, for example, are still without blogs.

What’s apparent is that some trade publishers have been nervous about blog content undermining the value of their magazine and online editorial, often failing to grasp where blogging can add value.

Having been following the progress of the Haymarket blogs and watching what other trade publishers are doing, as well as discussing the practicalities of blogging with journalists in our sector, I thought it might be helpful to offer some insight into some of the shared concerns, and for what it’s worth, my views on how these problems can be addressed…

* New demands for journalists to produce magazine and online content are high enough. Adding blogging to the list will lead to poorer quality of writing and less time for investigative reporting - this is a genuine concern that is shared by every trade editor I speak to, and journalists are similarly reluctant to take on extra writing responsibilities. Compile this with the recent redundancies that have taken place across most trade media, and the average journalist is over-worked and over-stressed.

However, this line of argument is missing the point about the role blogging plays in news consumption, and failing to acknowledge what magazine audiences want nowadays. Blog content can be equally as important as magazine coverage, if not more. Now is the time for publishers to be re-evaluating their content priorities.

* If content is now being broken online and followed-up in the magazine, what can we write about in a blog?- every new blogger worries about finding subject matter to write about, but journalists shouldn’t really have this problem! As a former trade journalist I know so many stories never make it into the magazine, or you have fascinating conversations with contacts that you wish you could do something with editorially. A magazine blog can be the perfect place to write about titbits of information that might otherwise get lost, or to start debate on subjects that you might feel passionate about. Although magazine editorial guidelines will most likely still need to be adhered to, the blog should be a place where journalists can publish independently and have a bit more freedom with subject matter.

* Blogging just doesn’t draw in the level of traffic that we’d like -magazines that have tested the water with blogging, but not dived in wholeheartedly, often cite this as a reason for delaying the launch of a proper blog. There can be many reasons for a magazine blog not taking off properly, but frequently the reasons are that the blog is hidden away on the website and not signposted clearly enough, that content is not interesting or updated frequently enough, and that measures have not been put in place to share the content socially or allow for comment and conversation.

* There’s no budget for professional blog set-up or consultancy, so we’re looking into it ourselves - it’s clear that times are tough for the trade publishing industry, and having worked on a trade magazine, I know what a battle it can be to make money available for these sort of projects. I would argue that this is a sign of a blog not being given the priority it should be, but that isn’t offering a useful solution to the problem.

Launching a magazine blog is a serious business (well it should be) and it’s important to bring in experts who know what they’re doing. It’s crucial that you have advice on the platform you’re going to use, as well as how it’s going to be designed and optimised etc. Particularly within the digital marketing industry, I’m sure there are companies out there who would be willing to advise the likes of NMA etc on a blog strategy for free. Now is a time to make the most of your contacts!

* We’ve already added ‘comments’ to our stories, so why do we need to blog? -this is probably the lamest excuse that I’ve heard for not blogging, but it’s come up a lot in conversations that I’ve had! If you’re a reader of sites such as NMA.co.uk and Revolutionmagazine.com etc, you’ll know that stories very rarely receive comments. Ticking this box is not a reason to delay launching a blog.

Posted in Blog, Blogging, Content, Journalism, Uncategorized | No Comments »

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