Flickr: The forgotten but potentially most useful social network for hyperlocal and local news sites

Everyone is always on the lookout for the next big thing on the web but over Christmas I reflected on one social network which is standing the test of time, Flickr.

The photo sharing site was launched in 2004 and Yahoo! soon snapped it up in 2005. It allows anyone to upload their photos, add detailed information and share them with the world. In the last 7 years it has grown to claim more than 51 million registered users and in August last year it claimed it hosted more than 6 billion images.

The key thing for me is that Flickr has built a smaller, niche but very engaged network of photographers – accessible to professional, amateur and wannabe professionals.

For me, Flickr is a perfect fit with the growing area of hyperlocal news sites and existing local news sites and 2012 should be the year, eight years after it started, that we re-connect and re-consider how we work with it as journalists and media organisations.

Despite the shift to mobile, multimedia and even more impressive download speeds – it is still words and pictures which drive the web. Just look at the 2011 most shared stories, it is the picture which very much makes the story and I suspect increases the ‘WOW!’ factor and makes people want to share it with their friends.

So how do you improve your Flickr offering, here’s a few examples and ideas; Read the rest of this entry »

Meet the librarian: the missing member of the online team?

We’ve recently been opening up our archives on WalesOnline, well pictures-wise anyway and our stats have revealed something – our readers really, really, really like looking at old photos. It doesn’t matter what they are of, places, people or events – the appetite for the past in the digital age is well and truly alive. Read the rest of this entry »

Creating maps for patch reporting

View Cardiff – find your local reporter in a larger map

Working the patch, an age-old skill in journalism. You might as a reporter know your patch – but how many people know you are their patch reporter? Are you tucked away on page2 in a little box with a list of other names?

We’ve re-introduced patch reporting for Cardiff and South Wales at WalesOnline and I created the map above to show where our reporters cover. The great thing about a google map is if people aren’t sure they can find their road, click, and the friendly face of their local reporter pops up. Read the rest of this entry »

Setting up an Amazon store for your hyperlocal blog

In this time of ‘hyperlocal business models’ and ‘how the heck do we fund this journalism business’, I think I might have found a way to earn a few extra pennies. An Amazon Affiliate store. Read the rest of this entry »

Tumblr could be the blogging platform for local media

Having a strong set of blogs on a media website is essential these days for being a successful one. It’s ticking those boxes of the ‘converged newsroom’ when you’ve got your reporters blogging alongside the stories they are producing – using their blogs as a way to expand on their areas of expertise. It’s also a good way of a reporter expanding on area they are passionate about.

There are numerous types of different software out there – from in-house solutions to Moveable Type – and each one has its advantages/disadvantages. Some of the biggest barriers I’ve found in discussing blogging with reporters are:

• finding the blogging software clunky to use, which puts them off because they think it’s going to take ages
• they still want to write 300-400 words when sometimes just 50 will do Read the rest of this entry »

Three ways media organisations can make money from online

It’s a very interesting question we’ve been asked to cover in this month’s topic for the Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists blog ring, and not least because it’s one the entire industry is trying to get its head around. There’s a lot of talk about pay walls and how they will work, back in December I wrote about how if news organisations are going to use pay walls they need to do them properly – and invest in technology that will actually help them to work (if they do work).

But away from the pay walls, how can money be made online out of the Generation Y’s who like browsing around in their spare time? There’s three ways media organisations can make money from online. The first is mass audience, the second is niche content and the third is location. Read the rest of this entry »

The great news paywall debate, let’s give extra

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.

Blog Local: Lifting the lid on your local community

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

Getting Real with 37 Signals

Borrowed a copy of ‘Getting Real‘ by 37 Signals from Les Cochrane recently. It’s billed as the smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application but there are lots of lessons that can be applied to business and life in general.

The main one that they focus on is to just get on and do it. Too many times people come up with ideas and then don’t follow through, if you’re a person that delivers you’re going to succeed. This doesn’t just apply to web apps, it’s everything – if you say you’re going to do something, you damn well need to do it.

The book covers:

• how to start out and attract funding
• how to stay lean and avoid the corporate bloat
• how to prioritise and what’s really important when working on a project
• how to select what should be part of your service/application/product
• how the processes should run within your organisation
• how the organisation should be in its outlook
• how you should recruit and select staff, and what people you need
• how to design
• how to code successfully
• how to write the best words that help sell your service/product/app
• how to price and how to increase the amount of people signing up and getting involved
• how to promote your service/product/app in a web 2.0 world
• how to support people once they have your service/product/app
• how to keep the buzz going after you’ve launched

One of the key things that 37 Signals point out is that you should always hire good writers. I think this is vital in any organisation, because people who can write and speak properly will be able to communicate better – not just with customers but also internally with co-workers. A well-worded email with clear instructions is priceless, a quick conference call and good notes from it can make all the difference. Plus, when you do have people with good writing skills communicating with customers it will show. I’m convinced that sloppy grammar can sometimes lose you a sale.

The 37 Signals book is definitely worth a read, even if you’re not in the web app business, as the lessons they impart can be applied to plenty of other circumstances. The way 37 Signals run their business and their ethos, well bits of it, are what I would like to apply to Blog Local as we start out into the business world.

Image credit to Move The Cloud’s

The first Preston Tweetup videos

Me presenting at Preston Tweetup

The first Preston Tweetup that I organised in March 2009 was filmed and now the edited video has appeared online. It shows how twitter users in Preston got together to discuss how the web could be used for the Preston Guild in 2012.

The Preston Guild is a big celebration that happens every 20 years in Preston, Lancashire, UK to celebrate the city, its organisations and its professions. Everyone gets involved, but the last time the Guild was celebrate – 1992 – the world was a very different place and the Internet was not as widespread as it is now.

The tweetup was hosted by myself, through Blog Preston, and had support from Stage 9 Marketing, a local marketing agency, and They Eat Culture, Preston’s arts organisation. The venue we used was the New Continental, in Preston, which has free wi-fi and great drinks.

The videos are in sequence as the night was in four parts, the introduction (from me!), the break-off groups coming up with ideas, the feeding back from each group and finally the summing up. It’s a great chance to see what happened at the Tweetup and if you’re planning to go to one, wherever it is in the world, it gives an insight into what it’s like.

Watch part one – the introduction to Preston Tweetup