A journalist has few advantages, except that he may occasionally persuade people to pay him for doing what he wants to do.

That’s the quote on the inside of a book I found rummaging through the shelves of one of Cardiff’s second-hand book shops. ‘A Portrait of England: News From Somewhere’ is what I found – which as my flat mate has pointed out is very badly titled as it includes a chapter on South Wales.

The book is the observations of journalist Laurence Thompson as he travels across the UK in 1952 after six years of a Labour government. It includes a chapter on Preston where I used to live. At £3 I’m looking forward to seeing what insight this bargain read offers.

Strolled into Y Fuwch Goch (or the Red Cow as it’s also known) to join a random bunch of people the other night for Cardiff’s first Tweetup of 2010. A what? A Tweetup. It’s where people who are on twitter, meet up and have a chat about whatever they like. Might sound crazy, but it works.

We had IT managers, web designers, technicians, PR people, journalists, lawyers, politics students, university admin people, photographers and a hairdresser sat round the table chatting about random stuff. People who had only met moments ago were quickly engaging in conversations about diverse subjects, swapping contact details and coming up with ideas.

The power of social media was being put to good use in Cardiff, bringing people together to talk and connect. There was a good turnout to the Tweetup but the number of people who tweeted to say “sorry, can’t make it” shows that there is a growing community out there who are happy to leave their mobiles/laptops to one side and enjoy meeting random people.

The only criticisms of the event are that it’s on a Friday night, not the best of times to try and persuade people to come to a Tweetup – they are going away, already on a birthday night out, knackered after a week of work or various other excuses. Also, a topic could be nice. The Tweetups that I held in Preston had a civic topic up for discussion in the first part of the event and then it moved onto more socialising – but the topic helped as at least you got to meet people, share ideas straightaway and then had a subject to chat with random people about afterwards.

It’s great to see Tweetups happening in Cardiff and here’s to many more happening, along with all the other hyperlocal/social media stuff that’s happening in Cardiff at the moment.

So next time you see a Tweetup advertised, don’t be shy, get off Twitter for a while (if you’re not on Twitter, you can still come along) and you’ll be surprised who you’ll meet.

Image credit to markallinson

This post was originally featured on yourCardiff

Not sure I’d call yourCardiff ‘hyperlocal’ – it’s probably just local. But nice article from Laura Oliver on journalism.co.uk on the launch of yourCardiff and the idea behind it.

It has my journey from journalism degree, to student media, to placements, to running Blog Preston (now that’s probably more hyperlocal, as Preston’s a smaller city). But I’m not going to get into the debate about what is, or isn’t, hyperlocal. It’s all good stuff.

Have a read of ‘Lessons from the hyperlocal frontline…’

Three weeks and a little bit into the role as Online Communities Editor with Media Wales and we’ve only gone and launched a community website for Cardiff.

We’re taking a bit of a risk, developing as we go along and hopefully building a community around the yourCardiff website. I’m hoping that by being open during the development stage we get people chipping in, suggesting ideas and feeling like it’s their site too – rather than just being developed some suits in an office.

This does however mean we’ve got a few gaping holes, some bits that say ‘under development’ and no doubt some parts that don’t display properly in Internet Explorer or some obscure browser.

But, it’s a win. We’ve hit the ground running, we’re building from the bottom up and hopefully creating a site that Cardiff can be proud of. It’s about the little things, celebrating what happens in communities (both location and interest wise) across the capital city of Wales.

We’ll no doubt have some fallings out, some disputes and some triumphs but I’m sure it’ll be fun along the way as we try to break our content down into hyper-local chunks – putting news and information into the hands of people in Cardiff. Sounds dangerous, it could be. Sounds ambitious, it is.

We’ll be using social media to help build our community, but it’s also about getting out of the office, out of the media hub and sticking our camera or pen and paper, into different places to find out what’s going on.

As I saw posted on a rather visceral blog post the other week – hyper-local is nothing new. It’s doing what local news organisations do best, tell people what’s going on in their area and community (be that location or subject of interest) but the web just opens up new opportunities and ways of doing that.

And finally, a huge thank you to unclewilco (Andrew Wilcox) for his break-neck development over the last few weeks. There’s much more to come.

Image credit to Auntie P

I’m starting a new job in Cardiff with Media Wales on January 11th. While I have been assured I will be spending many hours in the office/hunting down stories in Cardiff, I am hoping that I will be allowed a few evenings to explore Cardiff and the surrounding area. Here’s my list of places to visit so far, but please comment below or message me on twitter (@ed_walker86) with your suggestions of other places to try. My mission is to visit/do the things on the list by the end of 2010, and most likely post some evidence (photos/videos/links) on this blog.

Cardiff

Have a filthy night out at Metro’s

Dance like a muppet in the Welsh Club (Clwb Ifor Bach)

Watch some bands at the Buffalo Bar (via @evacaiden)

See some art and drink a cocktail at Milgi (via @evacaiden)

Watch a Six Nations rugby match

Watch a Cardiff Blues rugby match

Watch a Glamorgan 20:20 game

Go for a coffee with Glyn Mottershead (via @egrommet and @digidickinson)

Take a photo of the Millennium Stadium from the terrace at the back of my flat at sunrise and sunset

Visit Cardiff Castle and learn about its history

Go for a curry at Mint & Mustard (via @evacaiden)

Complete the Cardiff City Centre pub crawl in one day/evening (via @uncle_wilco)

Have a coffee and cupcake at The Pot Cafe (via @fillefi) – I had a coffee but not a cupcake, had some hummus and pitta bread instead

Take in the view of Llandaff Cathedral and enjoy the prettiness (via @fillefi)

Eat a pizza at Kalla Bella in Llandaff (via @fillefi)

Go shopping in the Arcades and enjoy some cheese at Madame Fromage and sandwich at the New York Deli (via @fillefi)

Take a Sunday stroll around Roath Park (via @fillefi)

Have a picnic in Sophia Gardens (via @cardiffbites)

Get cultured at the Chapter Arts Centre (via @cardiffbites)

Attend a Cardiff Tweetup (via @cardiffbites)

Watch the Cardiff Devils Ice Hockey team (via @cardiffbites)

Go to Cardiff Museum and St Fagans (via @cardiffbites)

Find the cheese market at the Castle and much some lovely cheese (via @becky_rutt)

Have a pint of dark in either Old Arcade, Vulcan or Goat Major pubs (via @uncle_wilco)

Potter round the junk and interesting stuff at Jacob’s Antique Market and have a mug of tea (via @uncle_wilco)

Have a ham bap from Cardiff Indoor Market – and smell the fish (via @uncle_wilco)

Chicken curry (off the bone) and chips in Caroline Street after a night on the SA (via @uncle_wilco)

Feed the ducks at Roath Park lake – or risk a boat ride (via @uncle_wilco)

Have a Clarks pie (cold & warm) (via @uncle_wilco)

Have tea at Waterloo Gardens Tea Room (via @speedupdating)

South Wales

Take a trip to the Gower and sit on a sandy beach and watch some birds

Visit the Big Pit and find out about mining in South Wales

Take a walk down Cosmeston Lakes (via @cardiffbites)

Visit Tenby and go to Oakwood Park (via @cardiffbites)

Visit Caephilly Castle on a wet Sunday and see Tommy Cooper Statue (via @uncle_wilco)

Have fish and chips from Boffy’s “Cod Father of Sole”‘ on Barry Island (via @uncle_wilco)

Wales in general

Buy a welsh hat and wear it on St David’s Day (via @uncle_wilco) – a welsh hat is one of these (I have been reliably informed).

Take an evening/weekend course in Welsh and learn the conversational basics. Any recommendations for where I can do this?

Let me know anything else I should be doing/exploring/seeing/experiencing in Cardiff and South Wales!

Image used in this post is of Mermaid Quay in Cardiff Bay. Image credit to John Greenaway.

Howard from Halifax advert

There’s been a lot of buzz and discussion about Johnston Press’ decision to make users pay £5 for three months access to a group of titles. If it works, everyone will do it. So, ignoring the ’should they, shouldn’t they’ debate I’ve taken a look at what I’d be beavering away doing if I was charging people to access a news website and inspired by Howard from those old Halifax adverts, I’d be giving extra:

Give me a log-in

Basic stuff, give me a username and password and then when I log-in, track what I like. Start to personalise my experience, let me pick what I want to see when I log straight in. I want the sports feed, I don’t like politics. I want to see the photo of the day. If you’re sticking stuff behind a paywall, make use of the opportunity that brings for giving me the news that I want to see when I log-in. Don’t make me click around like a mad man trying to find it.

Send me a weekly digest

I might forget I’ve paid for your service, I did it, it didn’t cost a lot and I’ve forgotten. Send me a weekly, or if it’s a big title a daily digest, of the best content and then I’ll be clicking through, using my log-in and feeling sorry for the poor bastard who hasn’t bought his subscription. Then he’ll buy one so he’s not a step behind me anymore.

Give me premium content

Let me press an exclusive red button and get ‘extra’. Let me supersize my news coverage, let me get stuck right into the detail of a general election, let me see the extra blog, the extra map, the extra content. Don’t let the freeloader see it.

Auto renewal

Once I’m signed up, make it a direct debit. Remember my card details and I won’t even remember it’s coming out of my account every month, week, quarter or whatever. It’s just another one in the list of ‘essential services’ alongside my broadband, mobile, car insurance etc.

Upsell me

I’m paying already, but what else might I want? Learn what I like and then work with the advertisers/PRs/marketing gurus to give me stuff I want. I’m always reading about travel, maybe I like travelling? Offer me a holiday, a competition, travel stuff. I might just bite. Upsell the service itself, add bolt-ons and upgrades. There’s my bog standard access fee and then there’s archive access, there’s live streaming access, take the McDonalds approach – ‘Sir, would you like fries with that?’ instead it should be ‘Sir, would you like archive access with that? For just 50p extra a month it’s all yours’. Remember many 50ps make a bigger amount.

Ask my opinion

I might be commenting on posts, I might not, but if I’m paying for it then there’s a good chance I will care about it. Send me surveys, if you’re making changes ask me in advance. Get me involved, ask for my ideas – and you’ll be surprised what I will come up with.

Show me where the money goes

Charities do this well, they show me that if I pay money, they will build a well in Africa and stop people dying. So, what does my £5 do? Am I helping to shore up local democracy? Am I making sure that the council bigwigs aren’t screwing me out of council tax? Tell me stories of what you’ve done and keep reminding me why this £5 is the best £5 I’ve ever spent. I didn’t buy a foot long Subway, I bought a foot long of local news, information and always being in the know.

There’s loads more that could be done, but in true paywall fashion – you’ll have to pay me to find out more. The days of ‘giving it away for free’ are numbered online.

Picked my local paper to cover as part of Help Me Investigate’s look at how much council reporting there is UK local newspapers. The Lancashire Evening Post covers Preston and the surrounding Lancashire areas. It’s a Johnston Press title and is based at their multimedia/printing/production hub at Broughton, Preston.

I found that there were 35 pages devoted to news on 23/11, 25/11 and 27/11 and of these 6.25 pages were given over to ‘council reporting’.

Like others I’ve been finding there is little reporting of council meetings, more stories are created from council press releases and then a few quotes from councillors. It’s also not clear when these councillors were saying these quotes, although the councillors title and ward are always attached.

The best edition for council reporting was 27/11 when there were lots of small stories in with reports from environment/planning meetings which boosted the coverage for that day. Council reporting rarely got leads, these were reserved for crime and lots of debate about the recent decision to move the National Football Museum away from Preston to Manchester.

Am going to do the Lancashire Evening Post again next week and try to get an edition each day (I couldn’t get hold of a copy on 24/11 as it was sold out at all my local newsagents!).

Creating content is one of the toughest bits about running a blog. Waking up, hitting the start button and then realising you’ve got nothing to write about. Here’s a few ways to ensure you’ve always got content flowing through your blog and keeping your finger on the pulse of your local community.

Use RSS

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It’s a great way to get feeds from websites that offer them and this will keep you up to date with websites – without having to keep visiting them! Win. You can use sites like Bloglines or Google Reader

Use email alerts

Don’t rely on RSS. A lot of websites do email newsletters or allow you to subscribe to email updates. You’ve got an email account, so get email alerts dropping into it regularly. They’ll often give you a lead.

Your local paper

They still exist and they generally aren’t going away. Subscribe to the RSS feed of your local newspaper(s) and take a read of this every morning. This will give you a clue as to what is on the agenda at the moment. You will also find they often just do snippets on community stories that you could make much bigger. Take one of their stories and see if it could go further, is there a new angle? Could you do an in-depth interview with someone featured? Whatever you do, don’t just copy and paste what the local paper writes as you’ll end up in hot water and you’re not adding value to your blog.

Your local council

They are always doing stuff. Events, taxes, councillors, elections, new projects. Local authorities are busy places and there are lots of people to speak to. Subscribe to the RSS feed if its authored, or email the press office and get on their distribution list for press releases.

Other local blogs

There will be other local bloggers. Someone will be extolling the virtues of your local river, or something like that. Find them and connect with them. Subscribe to their blogs RSS feed. Their two line post might lead to a series of posts for you about a subject, or they might even guest post on your blog. There’s a few ways to find them:

Google Blog Search, put your location in and away you go

Go to blogger.com, find a blogger from your area. Got to their profile and click on the location, it’ll show you all other bloggers in your area.

Once you start finding them. Create a page on your blog as a local blog directory, it’ll be popular.

Flickr

Flickr is a photo sharing website. But it also has groups – put your location into the find a group box and you’ll be amazed at how many people are taking photos of your area. Connect with these people, feature their photos with your posts (always remember to give credit to them for the photos) and you’ll find little snippets and stories.

Youtube

People seem to like making videos. There will be some for where you live. Go to Youtube and put your location into their search box. You’ll be amazed at what you find. Feature the videos on your blog, connect with the users and you’ll get even more. You can even get an RSS feed so you don’t have to keep checking for new videos.

Facebook

It’s the biggest social network – Facebook. There will be lots of people in your area on it. There will be groups about your area. Join them and keep in the loop about what local people are saying. Local campaigns will often have Facebook groups and it’s a great way to connect with people involved in local issues.

Twitter

It’s growing quickly, and don’t forget it’s got a handy little ‘Location’ bit on people’s profiles. Download Twitter Local – and put your location in. Then follow those people, some might follow you back, some might not, but you can see the conversations going on in your area. You can also go to http://search.twitter.com put your location in and get real-time results for what people are saying about your location. You’ll find snippets, follow them up, and you might just be able to create some content.

Theyworkforyou.com

Every area has an MP. Go to TheyWorkForYou and put your postcode in, find out who the MP is and then get an RSS feed or email alert everytime they do something. You’ll be amazed what your MP talks about and either how much or how little they talk. You can also get loads of great information about how they’ve voted on big issues.

Openlylocal.com

A new website – OpenlyLocal – it doesn’t have every local authority but it does have a lot, and it gives you lists of councillors, committee dates, new documents etc. Well worth checking out if you’re short of a meeting to cover and get a story.

Whatdotheyknow.com

A brilliant site. Freedom of Information requests can often lead to some juicy requests. It’s worth registering with WhatDoTheyKnow yourself so you can make FOI requests, but you can find all your local authorities and subscribe to RSS/email updates for when items happen relating to them. You can also get an RSS feed for your whole area. I’d recommend signing up to:

- Local council, local police, local primary care trust, local schools, local colleges, local universities, local county council, local fire service

Fixmystreet.com

Get reports on when stuff is wrong in your local area via FixMyStreet and someone needs to fix it. Get an RSS/email alert for a specific location. Follow it up and you’ll have a wealth of short stories that really are about your local community, everything from pot holes to dog dirt.

Help Me Investigate

A new service, launched in Beta – Help Me Investigate. It’s collaborative reporting, you ask a question and people will help you find the answer. You can also join in national questions and then break that down to your local area.

Getting out there

Nothing is a substitute for getting out there. Go to meetings, go to events, meet people, go to the pub and you’ll see posters, hear conversations and find out about things that are happening in your community. Just make sure you’ve got all the online stuff there so on a slow day, you’ll find there’s always plenty to write about in your local area.

If you find any other good websites for sourcing content, or think we’ve missed any then please let me know and I’ll add them. There will always be new website or tips and tricks for finding content, so this list is by now means exhaustive but get setup with these and you’ll never be short of new posts.

Image credit to miss_blackbutterfly

I’m off to Birmingham next week, the social media centre of the UK, for an event organised by AMSU about how social media can be used to make Students’ Unions stronger. I like the title, it implies that the Union is already strong but there’s much more we can do. It’s a fitting time really as the Union’s Facebook page has just had it’s 1,000th fan join (good times!) and we need to know how we can improve what we’re doing with social media.

Ahead of the event we’ve been asked to answer the following questions:

• the biggest single issue your students’ union is facing and also
• one thing you think social media will be most useful for

The biggest single issue UCLan Students’ Union faces:

How to keep doing what we’re doing, but potentially with less, and proving our impact and legitimacy

It’s no secret that in the future there is going to be less money around. Less money means less resources, less people and less time. But, as a Students’ Union how do we keep giving our members best value, innovative opportunities and chances for involvement without comprimising on quality? It’s not going to be easy to keep current services operating the way they are. And at UCLan, it doesn’t seem like student numbers show any sign of slowing down and also the students that we have in our numbers are becoming increasingly diverse and spread out across different campuses. The pressure will also be on to prove what we are providing, show how we measure that and as a lot of Unions become charities – show our impact.

One thing you think social media will be most useful for:

Engaging and mobilising groups of students

Social media can be a driver for getting students involved. Not just in the Union’s business, getting them to vote etc but also by empowering them to use social media themselves to campaign, inform, mobilise other students and make friends/contacts. If we have a membership that is twittering, facebooking, blogging, creating video, posting photos that is an active and engaged membership that will help the Union achieve its goals. At the moment a lot of that activity is lacking and we need to find ways of inspiring and instigating it – but this needs to be balanced with letting students have their own opinions in an increasingly policied space (both by the Union, the University and other organisations).

I’m hoping from the social media course I am able to learn what other Unions are doing, pick up some hints and tips and put together the start of a plan of how the Union can use social media particularly in its membership functions.

At the Talk About Local Unconference there was a lot of talk about creating a network of hyperlocal blogs. Talk About Local are doing a superb job of getting people started in blogging for their local community – but what about those people already underway or who have bigger aspirations?

I have learned through working on Blog Preston since January 2009 that there is a real thirst for community content about the place where you live. The local media is fixated on scandal, car crashes and the like and misses the community content. There is a real space and it needs to be filled.

The Talk About Local Unconference has convinced me that Blog Local can work. Our idea is to create a network of local blogs, some of them will be created under the ‘Blog [insert location]‘ brand and we will support these centrally with technical help and guidance on creating good and interesting community content. Others will be established blogs that are already happy with their technical stuff and their content, but would like to opt in to a wider network of local blogs.

We would use the powerful Wordpress Multi-user platform to create this network, and be able to create powerful plug-ins for local blogs that deliver relevant local information. One thing we’ve learned from the failure of local media groups at trying to fit standard templates is that it doesn’t work, Blackpool is different to Preston, Preston is different to Harrogate and Harrogate is different to Southampton. Each of them has a different audience the the website for the ‘Blog [insert location]‘ site needs to reflect that and it also needs to take into account the skills of the person updating it. If they are better with a camera than they are with words, it needs to be more of a photojournalism blog. If they can’t take a good picture to save their life, it’s more of a wordy affair but with a design that compensates for this and keeps it interesting.

One of the struggles for anyone running a local blog is content. Not everyone who starts or wants to start up a community blog is a recent journalism graduate or unemployed graduate. They don’t have the legal training, they don’t know how to knock out 250 words into 10 minutes and they don’t often know where to look for stories. Often local blogs wither and die after a few months when they think there’s nothing left to write about. Wrong. There is always information, events, opinion, gossip, news, photos, in your local area – you just need to build a network and tap into it. Blog Local will support its network to do this and to keep producing good content.

Add to this that Blog Local is not-for-profit, so the content is driven by the community and not by shareholders and it creates an interesting concept. Taking the new technology and tools available to create a mix-mash of community blogs across the UK, producing local content and information.

Is there a business model in this? I’m not 100 per cent sure yet but I do know that over the next few months we’re going to be working with some very exciting new people to help create a network of local and community blogs that can help lift the lid on their local communities.

Image credit to Aishihik