Category Archives: Media & Marketing

Internet, Media & Marketing, Social media

Twitter collaboration – keeping people enthused about blogging

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Drew B, a PR blogger, asked his Twitter contacts (including myself) for our thoughts on how to keep people enthused about blogging for an interview he was doing with the Guardian (not found the article as yet – possibly still in development here’s the story). I responded (full list of responses nicely summarised here) and the BBC Radio 5 Live blog has picked up on it (although no link love / and my real name not used)…

Still… Twice on the BBC in a week! My advice, FWIW, is to get blogging buddies – you can be spurred on by a few incoming links from friends asking your thoughts on things.

If you want to add me on Twitter, I’m over here.

Media & Marketing, Television

Welcome, CNN viewers

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…and apologies to my regular readers. Normal service will resume shortly.

Had a fun interview with CNN’s Jim Boulden just now, about the same Viadeo research I wrote about yesterday. We covered much the same ground and he interviewed our HR manager as well, so will be an interesting piece when it airs, on one of their business programmes today or tomorrow. They did a close up shot of me accessing this site, though, so am curious as to whether I’ll get a flood of visitors tomorrow…

Had a nice chat with Jim whilst the lights, etc., were being set up — we talked about codeswitching, something my mother looks at as part of her socio-linguistic research. I adapt to accents – particularly American accents – much to the chagrin of my more English friends. I think I managed to sustain a consistent British-ish accent for the interview, but let me know what you think if you see it. Jim has lived in the UK for 17 years (he’s American), but his kids speak with fully British accents. Must be an interesting house!

Internet, Media & Marketing, Work

Managing your internet reputation

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I was on Radio 5 briefly yesterday morning, talking about how this blog helped me get my job, to support a piece they were doing on a piece of research released by a client of my agency, Viadeo, looking at NetReps, or your ‘net reputation’. You can listen again to the piece here (until Tuesday 3 April), although you’ll need the dread RealPlayer and to zip through to 1h 56minutes through the stream. The research report from Viadeo is available here.

My story is that, when I was applying for jobs in hi-tech media agencies, having a blog about “technology, media, stuff and nonsense” helped demonstrate my passion for and knowledge of the industry to prospective employers, including the guys who hired me at Brands2Life. The discussion, curtailed by the pace of breakfast radio, went on to look at the possibility of faked or negative testimonials and what they might entail, and the whole thing raised the question of how you manage your internet reputation, an issue examined in the Viadeo report.

There were a few other angles that the BBC producer talked through with me before the show. For example, does the fact that people are Googling me bother me, from a privacy perspective? No: of course not, you put it out there, you gotta expect people to find it. Given how expensive it can be to recruit people, the recruitment process (certainly in my industry) is as thorough as it can be. That said, prospective employers looking at my StalkFacebook profile, for example, will probably take little from knowing that I like Tenacious D or think that Transformers: the Movie was cool.

Another issue that was raised on the programme was how to manage negative comments or posts. Having borne witness to several internet slagging matches and the sheer lunacy that is going on right now with the death threats etc, I can see how it would be a concern. Identity online is a complex issue and there are few straightforward ways of dealing with this: even with things like OpenID there are few obvious ways to conclusively demonstrate who you are. That said, the web is increasingly a community and a conversation so hopefully, over time, you’ll develop a NetRep and identity that is unmistakably your own.

All interesting stuff. Do social business networks help address the issue of managing your internet reputation? Let me know what you think. And if you want to add me on Viadeo, or Facebook (and I really know who you are, either in person or virtually), then please go ahead.

Media & Marketing, Technology, Television

Joost, BBC iPlayer invites wanted

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Please can someone send me these? I’d really like to see what they look like.

For those who don’t know, Joost is an internet TV service that’s undergoing a trial phase. It was created by the founders of Skype. The BBC iPlayer is another internet TV service for BBC programming – an evolution of the BBC iMP, which I tested last year.

I like to be up with these cool tech trends but have been left off the list this time :-( — hoping someone can send them my way soon! Thanks.

Media & Marketing, Science

Bad Science

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I know the interweb’s a big place and all, but I can’t believe its taken me this long to find Bad Science (via Ben), a brilliant deconstruction of false, stupid, inaccurate representations of science in the media and the world at large.

The site, written by Dr Ben Goldacre, a “serious fcuk-off academic ninja,” includes his column from the Guardian (of the same name) alongside a bunch of bonus materials (correspondence with crackpot ‘scientists’ etc).

Worth reading for anyone with an interest in science, PR tactics that could go wrong, and people who think that equations about the popularity of TV programmes have any validity whatsoever.

Man, my Bloglines feed pool is getting big.

Current affairs, Media & Marketing

Press gazette closes

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The industry trade magazine of the, erm, newspaper industry has shut down today after 41 years (via Guy Clapperton).

Sad. End of era. Yes. Best wishes to the people struck by the redudancies.

But – do we now have room / demand for an open source Press Gazette equivalent, powered by WordPress? Am sure that people would contribute; all you’d need is a hack (or group of them) willing to put some free time in, as The World’s Leading does for the PR industry…

It wouldn’t be as thorough, but it could still be fun. Volunteers?

I am aware that there’s probably a few blogs that do stuff like this. Please point me in their direction…

Update: Ah, yes – Martin Stabe is carrying on with Press Gazette style blogging on his website. Am duly subscribed.

Internet, Media & Marketing

Getting into video podcasting

I really am enjoying it. Watch these on the bus to work most mornings (or when they’re out):

Sky News headlines
Sky News entertainment
Sky News technology
Rocketboom
The Show with Ze Frank
The Ricky Gervais video podcast (overrated, but entertaining)
TrailerCast.TV

If anyone has recommendations for better general news/tech/entertainment podcasts I’d be grateful, because the Sky ones aren’t great. I need to spend a bit more time with iTunes (v argh.0) working out what else is worth subscribing to. And any other ones I should be watching.

Books, Media & Marketing

Piersless

Just finished reading The Insider, [[Piers Morgan]]’s memoirs, after having it recommended by loads of people at work as an entertaining read (thanks to Dan A for lending me the book in the end…). It’s also been difficult to concentrate on any of my other ‘to-read’ books else in the recent heatwave.

I hate to say it, but it was extraordinarily entertaining.

Of course, Morgan comes out of it looking good — he claims to be trying to paint an honest picture and therefore his mistakes are highlighted in the book… but many of his observations, as he relates them, make him out to be ridiculously prescient. I suspect hindsight had something to do with those.

But the anecdotes about and around the newsroom were fascinating; the degree of influence and power The Mirror wielded under his stewardship is downright impressive. As is the ridiculous namedropping he performs on every page of the book — to the extent that there is a ‘cast of characters’ at the back — people, you would assume on picking up the book, that Morgan knew or interacted with in the time he is recounting in these memoirs (1994-2004). The fact that this cast includes ‘Adolf Hitler’ suggests to me that the publishers perhaps did not feel Mr Morgan had quite enough celebrity friends after all…

Whichever way you draw it, there’s some impressive achievements in there, and some good stories. A book worth reading.