Social Media and the News

Last month Peter Horrocks the new head of BBC Global News told his new journalists to to use social media as a primary source of information.

"This isn't just a kind of fad from someone who's an enthusiast of technology. I'm afraid you're not doing your job if you can't do those things. It's not discretionary"

In instructing his researchers to use Twitter and RSS readers as essential tools for gathering news, the BBC is accepting that technology is changing the way journalism works and Aunty is obviously keen to keep pace with developments. To ignore social media is to ignore some great online resources.

Its therefore only a further mind-step away to consider what the next phase of social media and news is and one such step would be the Social Media Newsroom. By this, I don't mean the same dozen hacks all sat around re-inventing stories and perspectives (or a Pulitzer for the best Tweet), I mean a constant quorum of independent writers, freelancers and bloggers who are loosely attached to a central hub that curates content and provides greater impact than the individuals alone. This content is then pushed out via the same channels it is collected by, but with: views, additional information, further context, insight and other integrated data (e.g. linked government statistics, etc.). This is then all published to a central source (e.g. the newspaper's website) where it is further enhanced by comments, updates and feedback.

The Internet is now the only real distribution channel for a lot of newspapers who can no longer afford to publish their paper-based version. Peter Horrocks is correct to adopt this approach for his journalists now. Those that don't follow the best practices of social media may see their brands further marginalized online.

Hashtag hijacking

Using hashtags on Twitter (using # before a keyword to show your subject, allowing others to follow) is extremely useful.
For example following the stream of collective opinion on last night's BBC Question Time was both amusing and insightful. (#bbcqt)
However today when searching subsequent views on the programme, there are now a whole host of unrelated sales messages using the same hash tag. Obviously realising that those following this important subject on Twitter may be influential decision makers, spam accounts have decided to invade this subject for gain.

Take out:

• Organisers- create a topical hashtag for your important event, but expect to use another for your next one
• Followers - follow a hashtag, but don't expect the same quality of tweets in the morning
• Twitter - please find some way of stopping this or see the decline in the usefulness of hashtags

Has Internet Journalism finally become mainstream

Iran has been subject to scrutiny, not just from Western Governments but by new media (as well as its mainstream counterpart). Everyone's favourite UK inquisitor asks Arianna Huffington about using unverified news sources versus traditional journalism.

I love this clip because it seems the concept of crowdsourcing news (posting then correcting, not correcting then posting) is lost on Mr Paxman and Ms Elvoy of London's Evening Standard newspaper.

Yes, unverified news should not be knowingly published, but if taking time to verify it would delay this news being distributed (and potentially not keep those most affected updated about things), then as long as the unverified news source is disclosed as this.... then to the reader beware!

What does your grammar say about you?

Its quite funny that the BBC, in trying to encourage collaboration & community on bbc.co.uk, made a grammatical mistake today

Did the BBC and not Video kill the Radio Star?

Hayden's note:
I'm extremely please to have a guest posting this Monday morning, from Marc Ames, who is my friend and colleague at Ideal Interface.
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I am sure that many of you in the UK were like me and the first thing you did every morning last week was check what the weather was like, and then put the television on and switched on the computer to check for weather forecasts and websites to see whether you would be able to make it into work or whether the kids’ schools were closed.

However, if you go back twenty five years ago then when the snow arrived everyone would be switching on to their local radio station – when the web was but a twinkle in Tim Berner-Lee’s eye and breakfast TV was still in its infancy.

As well as the wintry weather, last week saw the National Audit Office release a report commissioned by the BBC Trust into the efficiency of BBC Radio’s output. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7872923.stm

Now in the style of the BBC television’s daytime output, how much do you think that the BBC spent on radio in 2007-08? Who will start me with £100m? £150m, £200m, £300m, £400m, £450m – and the final offer is £462m – 14% of the licence fee!

This covers the costs of the 10 network stations that broadcast UK wide (Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 et al) and the six national stations, two each for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It does not include the costs for running the 40 English regional stations.

So faced with that backing who would want to be a commercial radio operator? With the advent of the internet, the iPod, multi-channel TV, mobile phones, which sees advertising revenues fragmented further and companies demanding better evaluation for their £s – and yet radio has the most antiquated and archaic audience measurement tool – the RAJAR diary http://www.rajar.co.uk/docs/about/RAJAR_diary_example_page.pdf – which relies on people selected to fill in diaries about the times and stations they listen to.

When one diary can be the equivalent to thousands in audience, just to put into context about the research, I have been approached many times to take part in market research in towns or by phone, I have done jury service four times and yet I have never been approached to fill in a diary for RAJAR and I have never ever met anyone who has!

The industry has tried to grapple with this issue, especially as people now listen to radio stations online or on their mobile phone but have yet to resolve it.

Factor in the need for the radio industry to invest and pay for digital radio and yet one of the main areas for radio listening is in the car and the automobile industry have yet to commit building all new cars with digital radios and in the current climate this is not going to be high on their priorities then the future does not look bright. By the way, the BBC does not need to pay for carriage on any of the digital transmitters unlike their commercial rivals.

The relationship between OFCOM and commercial radio seems to be erratic, and that rather than moving with the times and creating a radio industry that is vibrant and strong, we have a media and a regulator that is struggling to cope with its place in a multi-channel market.

The irony is that if you listen to any commercial station these days, then two of the biggest advertisers are the Government’s COI and the local and regional councils.

Consolidation has been the word for many years in the industry and it now seems that within the next 12 – 18 months we will see the end game, with Global taking over GCap, Bauer taking over EMAP and some of the smaller radio groups are struggling or putting themselves up for sale, the heritage radio stations are or soon will become part of pseudo-national networks such as Smooth, Kiss and Magic.

So did the BBC indeed kill the radio star? As with all answers, there is not a simple yes or no. The problem lies in several areas, some of the commercial sector is poorly managed, and the regulator OFCOM has certainly not helped the industry move into the 21st century, for example, who else would think that a city the size of Bristol could sustain three commercial stations as well as BBC Bristol?

But the BBC has expanded and invested its output at a proliferate rate, unchecked by anyone and in filling in the vacuum created by the issues discussed above, may end up destroying most of its competition and indeed the media itself.

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Marc Ames is an Online Marketing Consultant who is particularly interested in helping companies achieve maximum value from their online channels. His skills include: online marketing strategy, web site development, e-commerce, usability, search engine marketing, online advertising and media selection, e-mail marketing and affiliate marketing.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcames

The digital future of the BBC

For those who haven't been following what's been happening with the BBC recently, I'll try and recap:

1. The BBC Trust on Friday (21st November) has rejected plans, described as 'controversial', to launch a network of local BBC news websites with video content.
2. This scheme would have cost around £68m, but was judged "unlikely to meet [licence fee payers] needs" or improve the service
3. The regional press has welcomed this decision, as it saw these plans as direct competition to their own local efforts (less laughing at the back there please) and would potentially affect their revenues by 4% per year.

This is in direct contract to nearly every other major media player, who is currently cutting back its regional news operations (e.g. even ITV). For more information see the well-balanced report on the BBC website.


What I believe the BBC management have done is find an area of communication (e.g. local coverage) that isn't the subject of innovation and ground-breaking new models that we would have once hoped for from the regional press. By planning a new, alternative and professional service that moves the Corporation one step further from broadcaster to local media hub, it surely is only trying to provide what people want?


Note:
This isn't necessarily the end of the matter. There is still a public consultation process which will see the final decision given on the 9th January 2009.


Perhaps the BBC now needs a new Media Relations Manager?http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/job/776268/media-relations-manager

Podcasting to improve the Influence

I've been planning on writing a blog post on podcasting for a while. This has grown in its consideration far more after my company Ideal Interface has starting working recently with a start-up who is using both audio and video as their main product and therefore their delivery mechanism.

Podcasting is just one of the many channels that companies have available for distributing content, and is the primany way of delivering audio (and increasingly video) to time-shifted listeners. Whilst a lot of podcasts are 'homegrown' operations done with a mic and some free software, quite a few companies are using this medium to get their message across.

This has been particularly adopted by media companies that already produce high-quality content. Obvious examples are:

The BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/directory/


The Guardian Newpaper:
http://www.riverisland.com/gfw/?_ctId=j6i2fUdEqsi9BTk5pz6ugGvEq4eznMpgEzs7w/K08us=

There have been stories recently that raise the question of whether Podcasting is failing? However, these reports are a little premature and do not really understand how the 'Long Tail' can be leveraged successfully by podcasting. The "Power to the People: Social Media Tracker" study in April 2008 estimated that just over 14% of US Internet users downloaded podcasts in 2007. eMarketer also predicts in a recent article that US podcast ad spending will grow to $435 million by 2012 from $165 million in 2007

It should also be noted that Podcasting has additonal benefits such as Search Engine Optimisation, if done correctly:
http://advertising-for-success.blogspot.com/2008/04/optimizing-podcasts-for-seo.html

What does Press2.0 really mean?

I've been asked by some readers of this blog to explain a little more why I have called this collection of articles Press2.0 ....

Recently I have tended to focus on the subject of corporate & influencer dialogue and I continue to think that there is a big issue concerning the way companies communicate with their consumers, shareholders, etc. But it is also obvious that there has been a shift in how companies communicate with individuals in recent times. They are engaging in a more collaborative conversation and facilitating 2-way dialogue to create positive influence.

However the media has probably shifted the most...

In the past company communications were usually done via 'The Press', which in general meant the media who would cover this sort of information (evolving through: print, radio, tv, internet news sites, etc.)

I thinkthat the media is now so broad (encompassing social media) that 'The Press' (although originally referring to those that had a printing press for making newspapers) now really means anyone with access to publishing technology... in other words, anyone with connectivity to the Internet.


I'll make my case with the following points:

1. The old journalist model is dying
If you don't believe me, take a look aroud the web.
e.g. Your Report enables the user to become the journalist.
http://www.youreporttv.com/

Bill Thompson at the BBC, put its nicley:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7338238.stm

"They [newspapers] also seem to have realised that anyone who wants to break into professional journalism needs to have some sort of online presence beyond a Facebook profile

Indeed for several years now newspapers and TV now look to bloggers as the source for news stories: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/4696668.stm and there are almost daily articles about how newspapers are dying: http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/30/1828252

According to Bill Keller of The Times:

Newspaper companies are losing advertisers, readers, market value, and, in some
cases, their sense of mission at a pace that would have been barely imaginable
just four years ago.

Perhaps this is not just because the internet is now so many people's primary news source, but that people just don't trust media companies anymore?

2. The power of publishing is no longer in the hands of the few
With free blogging tools and the ability to reach anyone out on the web, you no longer need to own a newspaper or synicated TV programme to reach across the globe and gain an audience.
Perhaps the naming of one of the most popualr blogging tools http://www.wordpress.com/ is the most obvious giveaway....


3. The commodity of the mainstream press is no longer content, its attention for eyeballs.. yours
Your attention is a commodity every major media want, as this brings with it the advertising revenue. Media owners will apparently publish anything they like if they think they can sell potential customer attention as inventory to a product owner.

Blogs and other social media don't necessarily crave that attention or revenue. They are created out of passion and need, or often just as a way of diarising or commenting on what happens...

.... as I have just done