Hi. I am James Crawford, a PR man. Media relations is my specialism, but public relations is changing and the internet is at the heart of it.
I'm a Manchester dweller and lover of the media. I have too much music, support Manchester United and adore all things French.
I currently work for a Citypress, Manchester's biggest and best PR consultancy, but all the thoughts on here are my own and nothing to do with my employers.
Today in the UK the Johnston Press, a large local newspaper group, put its online content behind a pay-wall, while BoingBoing wrote an engaging – yet completely unrelated article on paywalls.
Today’s post on Boing Boing summed the argument up for me. To succeed with pay-walls, publishers need not only an established monopoly on something valuable (local news, scoops, reporting quality) but also a plan to translate that into advertiser interest. Paywalls alone, unless they are ridiculously expensive, just won’t be enough.
The Johnston Press doesn’t have a monopoly and locals can turn to the BBC, Commercial Radio and other local and weekly papers.
The other question their paid for strategy raises is whether or not it offers anything to advertisers? My hunch is that they will lose thousands of unique users who are currently eye balls for advertisers.
Where paid for strategies work is when there is high value content. This blog keeps banging on about Manchester Confidential, but isn’t their business model the classic example of when payment can be charged? The site has original content, an extremely local focus and with very little competition.
Yes, The Manchester Evening News has food reviews too, but it’s not the same as ManCon, which has unusual content and can innovate because it is not tied to a publishing giant.
Good luck to Johnston Press, I hope the management has an ace up their sleeve.
Here are a few links of interesting “media” stories, which tickled my whistle this morning.
TECHCRUNCH
I recently contributed to a feature for How-Do on Twitter and Mob rule, which was written by @LauraSpence. I wish I had raised a few of the points on realtime news that was written in this article . I also wanted to write a post for my blog on the Tiger Woods story, but I think realtime news has passed me by, as this article sums everything up.
Amazing picture of the Sun This stunning photograph of the Sun was trending on Popurls.com and appeals to anyone with an interest in nature, and the natural patterns that lie within the world around us. Beautiful, and an example of the internet at its best.
RIP Technics
As a man who has several thousand 12 inch records, and a proud owner of a set of Technics 1210s, I was very said to read this last night, which shows that Panasonic has decided not to make their iconic turntable any more. The geeks among us will read the online chatter which takes the line that only the MK2 will cease production, but the official line is that the MK5 is for the chop too. It could all be a clever PR stunt and I will be looking into this in more detail.
If true, these are dark days for music fans, but the technology has moved on. All I need now is to pay someone to sit and digitise thousands of my records – a thankless task, but I am willing to pay.
The BBC keeping Cyberspace open to the public This is an interesting read. For me the BBC should be a major battleground for Labour at the next election. It looks like Cameron has signed a deal with Murdoch to cut the BBC down in size in return for News International’s support. This article shows why we need a big BBC. I am sure the public would back a party which fought the corner of the Beeb.
Seth Godin
And finally, something on the internet which annoys me. Seth Godin’s blog is one of the biggest draws in the Blogosphere, but does anyone else think that his content is crap? The Yanks really go for this sort of self help, psychobabble.
So this is why I turn to the internet for news. I went to the corner shop this morning and bought a copy of the Guardian, but I haven’t even looked at it yet. Instead I’ve tapped into five stories which have defined my morning.
I proposed a toast to the agency or in-house team which dreamt this campaign up:
Then I checked out this post. Maybe this Facebook initiative wasn’t the roaring success it was made out to be?? I still think it was a creative solution though…
Personally I think Twitter is responsible for this boom because for millions of users like myself the service is the gateway to finding the best blogs on the blogosphere, inspiring others to take up writing. Also, the demise of Twitter is much over reported. Yes, growth in visitor numbers to Twitter.com has flattened, but who visits the site anyway? Most of us use Tweetdeck or another sort of client.
But, alas, I digress….
I wanted to write this post to celebrate the beauty of taking your blog self-hosted, share some of the highs and lows, and to thank @vinceapplemac who helped me.
Hopefully this post will prove useful to someone else going through the self hosting process. I’m better at developing content than technical geekery, and I guess there are lots of people like me, who could find this post useful.
Firstly, I decided to use WordPress.org as a content management system (CMS), because the tool is itself a form of social media and there is huge interaction with other bloggers on the platform and beyond. The ‘social’ aspect of blogging platforms are often much overlooked because many just consider blogging as another form of publishing. WordPress.com was simply brilliant because it is so ‘social’. I think .org is even better in this respect, so think wisely before choosing your CMS!
I also chose WordPress.org because it has much wider functionality than WordPress.com, which was so easy to use when I was starting out. The .org version is even better because there is added fun to be had via a myriad of plug-ins. The plug-ins cover everything from widgets for buttons to LinkedIn , through to SEO optimisation . There is a widget for everything.
Next I bought a domain name, storage space on a server which sounds complicated, but is in fact easier than buying your shopping from Tesco.com.
Being a PR person, I am much better at the content side than the technical aspects, so I sought the counsel of @vinceapplemac , who linked WordPress.org to my domain and migrated the content from my existing blog to the new site. Vince tells me this process is also easy, but it was a bit complex for me, so I recommend seeking some help for this step.
The next few days were spent setting up functionality, playing around with the plug-ins and reading up on some of the differences between .org and .com.
I also found this resource which I think people will find useful. The presentation is for beginners, but I guess some people reading this will be beginners too and might find it useful:
Obama should become more like British politician John Prescott.
In a week when Obama disclosed that he has never sent a tweet in his life, despite having over 2million followers, John Prescott’s web presence should be lauded.
Like him or loath him, in a world where PR tries to control every message, Prescott is keeping it real. His views are his own, his principles are there for all to see and it is this honesty that is part of his charisma.
You might not like his views on Unions etc but if the Tories win the next election, then we will go back to a day when Britain was run by old Etonians, who have some strange views on Europe and anywhere north of Luton.
The rest of the political world should be looking at the approach of John Prescott to social media. As there are some easy wins here. Especially on blogger engagement.
I am sure John would say that he’s not a techy, and I can see ways in which he can make better use of social media tools. (Get on Posterous or Tumblr John! They are great easily for sharing information), but this technical skill matters not.
What works for John is that he can shoot from the hip and by and large be on message. Social media is perfect for politicians who feel able to do that.
John is combative and also interacts with his audience and retweets things he agrees with.
His blogging is insightful and you warm to the guy because he makes statements that he believes in, whether you agree with him or not.
I used to work with a chap who was one of Prescott’s special advisers, Tony Sophoclides, and he told me what a genuinely great guy John is. At the time I didn’t believe him.
Bland political figures are ruining politics and feeding groups such as the BNP, so more open politicians are needed.
Thanks to social media you can now get up close and personal to politicians in a way in which you couldn’t before. In my view all politicians should follow the Prescott model – starting with Obama.
Paid for content? Removal of News International from Google in a matter of months? Murdoch yesterday repeated his comments about Google Search and is either, in his own words, ‘going to lead the industry’ into a brave new world, or stuff his business model up for good. Either that or he has a plan C….
One thing is for sure: the industry has a problem. Citizen journalism, online media, advances in technology and many, many other well trodden ‘challenges’ are hitting advertising revenues hard. Micro payments based on site visits is a solution that is worth considering. That way media channels are rewarded for providing rich and interesting content.
I for one would be happy to pay for a (small) licence from which micro payments are made to content providers of all shapes and sizes. While I love the free nature of the internet, I recognise quality content needs to be paid for. However, if Murdoch thinks users will subscribe to each of his news sites then I think he is going to run into trouble. Even if he consolidated all his titles into a Sky Broadcasting type package, the idea of subscribing is not that appealing.
For pure news outlets at least, the power (but maybe not income) is moving away from the media and back to the journalist, and bloggers are beginning to ‘monetise’ their sites. All journalists need now is training and cost effective technology.
For tabloid titles such as The Sun, the power is migrating to the celebrities. Famous faces are now the ‘intellectual property’ or content and it is the celebrities the tabloids contain, the likes of Jordan and Peter, that are generating income from the tabloids.
Anyway, by charging for content, Murdoch isn’t doing anything new. Manchester Confidential beat him to it and is charging for content. Apparently the move is going well. Good luck to them! It might work for niche or regional communities, of which Manchester Confidential is one, but I don’t think the same process will work for news outlets. Manchester Confidential offers readers more than just editorial, with offers and personal insight keeping its members coming back for more. Apart from MySpace, Murdoch is a long way from creating a similar offer.
The Sun apologised today for spelling incorrectly the name of Jacqui Janes’, who has just lost her son to the war in Afghanistan. A typo is, of course, just a typo unless hours earlier you have crucified the Prime Minister committing this same error. Then it becomes hypocrisy.
Media hypocrisy is usually a strong narrative, so why was it that when The Sun was forced to issue an apology there wasn’t more of an uproar? Especially as ‘Typogate’ had an intriguing subplot of tabloid exploitation.
One would think that competing media outlets would love to stick the boot into The Sun and run a mocking story about their blunder. Yet only The Guardian has published anything of note.
John Prescott didn’t mention it in his blog today either despite sticking it to The Sun in other ways. This might have been out of respect and not wanting to make political capital out of Jacqui Janes’ situation. This makes sense, although bringing up The Sun’s mistake wouldn’t really be seen as further exploitation of a grieving mum, given the wider circumstances and the scale of the row.
Most notably, those folk on Twitter were comparatively quiet on the subject. Twitter users aren’t known to hold back and the social media site has seen plenty of mob rule recently, what with Jan Moir , AA Gill and all sorts of people receiving a battering at the hands of an angry group of dissenting voices.
OK, so the Tweet on the newspaper’s apology is doing the rounds, but The Sun or Jacqui Janes aren’t even trending on Twitter and haven’t been all day. The apology has hardly registered.
The usual Twitter lobbyists and campaigners aren’t encouraging others to humiliate The Sun and show up their hypocrisy. Could it be that Twitter users are now choosing to use their lynch mob tokens a little more sparingly, given recent criticism of ‘mob rule’? There have been a lot of blogs this week stating that Twitter is maturing, based on the slowing subscription to the service, so maybe this lack of noise is a sign that its users are growing up too? Personally I would have been intrigued to have seen this issue ‘go nuclear’. Old Media versus New. It has been a while since the rabble have been roused.
Or is the abstinence of the Twiterati more a statement on Gordon Brown’s popularity? Maybe Twitter users simply don’t want to defend the PM? I’m not sure this is a major factor.
In any case, The Sun’s apology goes further than being a political issue, and highlights shady tabloid journalistic tactics. For that reason I would have liked to see this story make more of an impact. The Sun is less likely to make an apology than Gordon Brown, and this rare action is worth the headlines.
Everyone will find this database of journalist ‘Twitterati’ useful.
Following journalists on Twitter is a great way to keep up with the news and I use Twitter as an RSS news feed. I’m so reliant on Twitter that I rarely go directly to news sites these days – as my news is fed to me in a stream of live updates.
So when I found this database of journalists I was pleasantly surprised. There have been attempts to capture the Twitter feeds of journalists, and indeed one organisation tried to sell my company a Gorkana style Twitter database for £10,000 annual fee. Luckily social media has the answer and this neat site looks like it will eventually become the definitive guide. http://www.mediaontwitter.com/
A colleague has just received the email below which uses Armistice Day to sell properties. It was sent just after 11am on 11 November while many were observing a minutes silence… Classy!
The PDF post above is a copy the direct marketing email from the Manchester-based estate agent. Have a look.
Hi. I am James Crawford, a PR man. Media relations is my specialism, but public relations is changing and the internet is at the heart of it.
I'm a Manchester dweller and lover of the media. I have too much music, support Manchester United and adore all things French.
I currently work for a Citypress, Manchester's biggest and best PR consultancy, but all the thoughts on here are my own and nothing to do with my employers.
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Or is the abstinence of the Twiterati more a statement on Gordon Brown’s popularity? Maybe Twitter users simply don’t want to defend the PM? I’m not sure this is a major factor.
