Twitter’s SMS decision and a matter of trust

Twitter has prompted campaigns on its own platform and across various media websites this week with its decision to stop supporting SMS.
The cost of sending out those tweets is just too much for the company behind the service to bear. According to its statement on Wednesday; “It pains us to take this measure. However, we need to avoid placing undue burden on our company and our service.”

Up until this week, users of Twitter could choose to receive all, or just some, of their tweets on mobile phones. It meant many journalists (myself included) were able to move seamlessly between a useful channel of communication in the office, to one on the move.

  
It also provided an easy way for many newspaper companies to offer “updates to your phone” services for everything from Manchester City updates (MEN) to breaking business news in the West Midlands (Birmingham Post) to sport on the move (Evening Leader).

Some of those pro-twitterers expressed their annoyance to journalism.co.uk and the sudden decision prompted howls of anguish all round.

Leading online journalism commentator Paul Bradshaw kicked off a campaign with a Facebook group  and some tools to change your avatar on Twitter and keep the campaign updated .

One of the avatars

 The Guardian’s Jemima Kiss blogged on the issue  and then set up a poll to ask users whether they would pay for tweets.

The results at the time of this posting were predictable enough - the majority (including me) want it all and want it free.

And therein lies the problem, we’re used to getting lots for nowt.

Had Twitter introduced a charge at this point for a NEW SMS service, they may well have found enough people who’d welcome it as an enhancement, but simply taking something away that was provided for nothing does nothing for their case.

But regardless of what happns next, the unexpected change in policy has given me another headache completely unrelated to tweeting on the move - it’s a matter of trust.

It’s hard enough to persuade editorial managers, readers and website users to try something new, to reach outside of “our”structures and trust in tools provided by others without having them snatched away unexpectedly on a wet Wednesday morning.

Thanks to this decision, those services which set up offering, what seem to be easy solutions to tricky techie problems,  could well find it harder to build up so many trusting users in future.

 

Why put links in news stories?

Linking newspaper website content to outside sources always seems to throw up some challenges for journalists starting out in the online world so I thought I’d blog some tips and, of course, links on the subject.

While every blogger, online journalist and community editor knows that linking is currency as far as building, nurturing and keeping audience is concerned, newcomers to the online world often find it counter intuiative to “keeping” users.

In my experience the objections are;
1. Users might leave our site and never return.
2. We know everything there is to know on this subject so why would anyone need to go elsewhere.
3. It will make us look stupid if we’ve “missed” something.

And I know this experience is commonplace. Looking back at the comments left on the slideshow on regional newspaper activity I did back in May, linking was one of the hot topics for those responding.

At his blog, fellow links fan Craig McGinty points out that the BBC have taken on board the possibilities of linking with a project called BBC Topics which intends to include the best of external websites.

But even here, a quick look at the current Topics page for Gordon Brown only manages one authoritative external source - the Number 10 website.  Seems there’s a leap of faith still required here then!

I’ve recently produced the tips listed at the end of this post as part of my ongoing training work and would be glad of any further contributions or experiences in establishing a linking culture.

But, seeing as I don’t have all the answers on this subject (and, given the topic it would be ironic not to!) here’s some links to the best I’ve come across so far;

* Links as news, links as reporting.
* How and where to hyperlink in a news story.
* What is links journalism.
* Linking and SEO presentation.

My tips on linking
* It is advisable to restrict linking to credible/trusted sources and include a disclaimer on your site making it clear that your organisation is not responsible for external sources.

* When checking on external links, be aware that it is very easy for a private individual to change a web page from innocuous one to something more risky in response to the traffic your newspaper is now providing thanks to their improved Google rank.

* Links should be to the specific piece of information being mentioned. For example, if you are writing about a government consultation into children’s play, don’t just take the user to the general link for the department for education: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk instead take them to the actual consultation document: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/publications/fairplay/ This sort of deep-linking makes it easy for the user who will come to trust you as the most authoritative source of information on a topic.

* Bear in mind that if you had to register for a site in order to see the information, the user will have to do the same so provide instructions.
 
* It’s important to open links in a new window so that the user can remain with your site and to make it more obvious that the two sites are different.

* Decide a consistent style for the display of links commonly grouped together at the bottom of the story or elsewhere on the page.

* Blogs have made it commonplace to find links within the body text of the article. The same circumstances apply as above. The advantage is that users easily identify with the context of the link because the word, or words, are highlighted and underlined. The disadvantage to this approach is that users unaccustomed to online may find it a halting experience to click onto a new window part way through an article.

Oh, and finally, in answer to those three objections this post started with; 1. users will be more likely to return if the site is known to provide a comprehensive starting point, 2. unlikely that we know everything. No really, there’s some bright cookies who don’t work in newspapers and 3. you haven’t missed anything if you spotted it to link to it.

Let’s DO something!

There’s some fighting talk coming from north of the border. If the statement below sounds familiar to your experience of the current climate;

“senior managers seem to be more concerned with spouting buzzwords & standing still than actually doing something, sometimes it feels like there’s little point in trying to do anything at all.”

Then perhaps Iain Bruce could help do something about it. He’s issued a rallying cry with this blog post: “journalism is dying on its feet, and we have to do something to keep the old flame burning”.

He proposes we all do something constructive this summer and get together in Glasgow for the Digital Media Meal - an evening of food, drink and discussion. 

As he says: “A platform for encouragement and debate, it would be a chance to chew over everything from what to do with multimedia journalism to XML standards for news bulletins and press releases.”

Sounds like a plan - something to cheer us on for the summer. If you like the idea, leave a comment at his blog here.

Selling a property on social media

Lounge of flat for sale

I’ve put my money where my mouth is and am attempting to sell a property using social media tools.

After all, the whole idea sounds perfect. First advantage - no costly estate agents.  Second advantage - it’s easy. It took me six minutes to set up two ads on Facebook, with a selection of pictures. (Compare that time spent to placing an online ad on a newspaper website)

This activity was also fed into Friendfeed , this blog post will also publicise the sale and then twitterfeed will kindly syndicate to another new set of potential purchasers on Twitter.

I concede using my Flickrstream is possibly a bit random, but I figured that you just never know who might be looking to relocate and searching for pictures in the locality.

Free and easy then, but will it work?

I was astonished to get an email within hours of posting the ad - but opened it to see it was from another journalist wanting to know whether advertising on Facebook was working!

And to date, that’s my first and last inquiry.

So, it you’re reading this and would like to purchase a two-bedroomed genuinely spacious (trust me, I’m a journalist not an estate agent) apartment with views over the Peak District and just 12 miles from the centre of Manchester (in the UK) drop me an email to sarahhartley2004@yahoo.co.uk and we’ll come to some arrangement.

Video journalism: How do you manage it?

I’m doing a bit of research at the moment in the hope of learning from the experience of others when it comes to the work of video journalism.

By asking the question; “who in your organisation edits and processes video?” I hope to get some ideas on how to streamline the workflows of  busy newsrooms coping with this often time-consuming task.

It was interesting to see that the debate about where this activity sits is also featuring on David Dunkley Gyimah’s blog where he poses the question Digital Journalist versus Integrated Multimedia Video journalism which one’s the future?

And comments: “Some outfits however interpret digital journalism as video journalism so on a pedagogic level herein lies a crux.”

So far a few respondants to Twitter and Plurk have come back to me to say that the VJs themselves (generally print reporters who’ve been trained) now carry out the video editing and associated work to get their video reports online.

What’s your experience? Does your newsroom see it as the VJ’s job? Do you consider it as a production function and if so how do you manage that? Do you have a special unit which takes responsibility?

All responses gratefully reecive - by all means email me if you want to comment off-the-record. I won’t be blogging any individual’s experience (or naming, names) just seeking some wisdom!

Illicit affairs? Not me

Following on from the various comments I received yesterday, I’d just like to point out that the spokeswoman from illicitaffairs.com who shares my name is NOT me.

Yesterday’s PA story which made its way into the newsrooms of the country isn’t me moonlighting for websites of an adult nature.  Just so as you all know - I have no knowledge of the extra-marital activities of the UK.

Success in staying offline

Here I am back online after 14 days. Yes, I did keep to my self-imposed confinement and enjoyed all that the sunny town of Kalkan has to offer (surprise, surprise a lot of foodie stuff which will feature on my other blog soon).

Entering into a pact meant I couldn’t crumble as I didn’t want to get embroiled in his work issues on holiday any more that he did with mine. So online abstinence was the deal and we stuck to it.

There were some testing times - the celebrations which erupted when Turkey beat Croatia  with fireworks, convoys of cars and scooters, dancing and flag waving in the streets - were scenes just made for sharing. It took some serious restraint not to send a single tweet, utter or even a picture of the sheer joyous (and trouble-free) exuberance.

Perhaps surprisingly for a journalist whose first media is text it was the pictures (video) which seemed so unnatural. Snapping and sending to Flickr has been one operation for so long now that bringing my phone and camera home full of pictures to process feels like going back to a time when you’d drop your films off at Boots.

So, with an internet cafe on every street corner and free wi-fi i just about every bar and hotel, it turned into a  case of will power at times.

But I’m glad we did - until now. The daunting catch up has started…… the beach life is fading.

Goodbye Web 2.0 world

I’m preparing to go cold turkey and do 14 days straight without internet use of any type. Frankly the prospect is fairly terrifying.

My family has already started to set odds on how many days it will take me to find an internet cafe in the remote area of the world I’m sending myself to.

I can’t actually remember the last time I spent a whole day offline - it definatley wasn’t this year.

So while many people would find the prospect of a fortnight away from the laptop/mobile/PC etc. a normal break, for me it’s exceptional.

I live my life online - that’s what I do!

I’ll also miss some important occasions. Firstly the DEN trip to Liverpool then the two awards we’re up for - the north west daily newspaper website and the Press Gazette Multimedia Publisher.

If I had internet access I’d know about all the above within hours of each event but now I’m reliant on someone texting me or catching up with a manic trawl round when I get home.

The break has also made it a necessity to depart from the usual services I use. In doing so I’ve come up with a sort of league table.

So here is the top ten online services according to current usefulness (to me);

10. First to go was the work email. No issues here, just set that out of office reply and breathe a sigh of relief!

9. Del.icio.us. Seeing as I’m not going to be online, this serves no purpose for the next two weeks and there isn’t any community as such to belong to.

8. Flickr. I love Flickr as a way to organise my pictures and I find it an invaluable tool for use with my blogging activity but I haven’t invested much time into making contacts so the community element isn’t so strong.

7. Seesmic. I haven’t used it enough to be truly part of the community and deep down still struggle with the front of camera bit. So the goodbye there wasn’t too much of a tug.

6. Utterz.  Although I find it a useful tool for occasionalreports on the go, the community aspect of it hasn’t yet grabbed me. The integration with Twitter and blogs pushes it up a bit.

5. Next were the two “work” blogs. Trickier. The one blog I can easily hand over to my excellent co-blogger but the food blog? Well it will just have to wait - I hope the 50,000 plus users will bear with me.

4. Home email accounts. This is how people I actually want to communicate with me get hold of me.

3. Plurk. Strange that this should be so high on the list as I’ve only just started using it. However it’s intriguing enough in its posibilities to make it almost to the last turn-off.

2. My personal blog. That’s why you’re reading this. It has also not been around for very long but has already put me in touch with so many truly well-informed and entertaining people that it’s invaluable to me.

1. Twitter. Yes it has to be the last to go not least because the final tweet will also update Facebook and Friendfeed. So there you have it - the easy integration with other applications is the clinching factor.

It’s also interesting to note that if I’d done this same exercise a year ago, many of these services wouldn’t have figured.

So as I wonder what next year’s list might consist of, it’s good bye from me - for now.

Train experiment complete

The week long transference to public transport was a success.

On four out of five commuting days I caught trains which were on time, had spare seats. Newspapers (Metro) were provided and only on one journey were there topless, skinny lads swigging lager.

I enjoyed the two mile each way walks and feel a lot better for them than sitting stressed out in a traffic jam. (Also lost 2lbs as well which is good as foodiesarah is in danger of being fattiesarah).

So far so good. But what of that one day I didn’t get the train?

Well that was Wednesday and Wednesday was a glorious sunny day.

At the risk of sound like Clarkson’s little sister,  Wednesday was the type of day soft top cars were invented for and it just seemed criminal to leave “Baby” on the drive and trudge off to the station.

(And yes I am one of those saddos who named their car but at least the name does have a certain irony. Those wanna-be grandparent conversations stopped after the purchase of a two seater.)

Also I had an appointment out of the office so had  to take the car to work. Of course. The drive through the hills with the sun beating down listening to my favourite music in a delicious half hour before being deskbound had nothing to do with it.

So, yes the train is a perfectly viable form of transport from where I live to where I work. Lesson learned.

But public transport will never give that opportunity for spontaneous enjoyment that only a form of personal transport (be it bike, car, bicycle) can provide.

Whether the extortionate financial and growing environmental cost of motoring makes that a increasingly guilty pleasure remains to be seen. 

Trains, pains and automobiles

It may finally have happened. The increasing price of petrol and the continuing nightmare commute home is pushing me to the train tomorrow.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a hater of public transport in any respect, however, my experience of the local train route so far hasn’t been inspiring - the morning I had to step over someone who was asleep on the floor being less memorable than the cancelled late night train which led me to being attacked by a brick-throwing hoodie after being forced to fork out £50+ for a 12 mile taxi ride home.

So giving it all another try is quite a big step. Yobs and tramps aside, I think the downside to any public transport is having to be organised instead of dashing out when you’re ready straight into the car.

Hence I’m now spending some time looking at online timetables and working out a minute-by-minute execution of all that needs to be achieved in the morning.

So far, it looks like I’ll get an extra 20 mins in bed, get more exercise by having a further three to four miles to walk, will have half an hour each way to catch up on some work, conveniently walk past my favourite smoothie place and so potentially have a less stressful start and finish to the day.

Looks good written down but lashing rain could still change the script.

Maybe I’ll update later in the week with the reality.