Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Google Sidewiki – an experiment

Anyone using the very much under-the-radar Sidewiki toolbar gizmo from Google to add browser-located comments to web sites will now be able to see an entry for Freelance Unbound on the left of the screen next to the home page. I’ve only just come across Sidewiki myself – I caught a reference to it in […]

Monday, October 5th, 2009

Social media is key for traffic referral

Some interesting new stats from online market analyst Hitwise on visitor behaviour on the web show that web users visit social media sites more than any other kind of content. (I had trouble downloading the actual data, though, so this is not backed up with first-hand research). [UPDATE: the nice people at Hitwise sent me […]

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Facebook, obsession, murder

You have to love newspapers’ obsession with social media. Whether it’s the Twittering of Stephen Fry et al or the latest security breach involving Facebook, the news media are all over it – irrespective of whether their readers know the difference between a Tweet and a twat.  This latest example from the Metro pushes a […]

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Where's the advertising going? Facebook, apparently

Need a job in the media? It seems Facebook is the place to go, as founder Mark Zuckerberg aims to double the company’s headcount to 2,000.  Of course, you’ll need to be an engineer or programmer, rather than, say, a journalist, which is the problem when advertising deserts its traditional media home for that new-fangled […]

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009

Why newspapers (and TV) are struggling in the internet age

The news that Gap has scrapped TV ads for social media should come as no surprise. And it’s bad news for those who think that the media’s focus should be on getting readers to pay for online content. The internet makes it easy for anyone to become a publisher of traditional-style media content at virtually […]

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

Facebook, teenagers, suicide

Apparently, social networking sites prevent teenagers from developing rounded relationships, makes them treat friendship as a commodity and helps drive them to suicide. It seems that Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols is not a big fan of SMS and email, either. Friendship is not a commodity, friendship is something that is hard work and enduring […]

Friday, July 17th, 2009

8 reasons why journalists love Twitter…

…much more than real people do For some reason journalists have grabbed hold of Twitter as a starving man does a ham sandwich. But why? What is it about this slightly clunky, limited, and frankly difficult to negotiate web tool that we love so much? Here are a few thoughts… You can build up a […]

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Teenagers reject Twitter shock

Much media kerfuffle about the news that teenagers aren’t interested in Twitter. Well – crucially, that they’re not interested in using it from their mobile phone, which costs money. The piece in question, from the Financial Times, reports on a research note from Morgan Stanley written by 15-year-old intern Matthew Robson. (The note is available […]

Monday, July 6th, 2009

Spies, Facebook, Daily Mail, Nazis

The Mail on Sunday‘s Facebook/MI6 revelations are something of a digital media wet dream, combining espionage, social networking and Nazi historians in a way that is almost the highbrow version of Friday’s midget/wrestling/hooker fest. There’s a lot going on here of interest – and it’s worth coming back to. But for now, though, it’s enough […]

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

Does journalism need a new crowdsourcing tool?

It strikes me there’s a kind of assumption around journalism that it somehow needs bespoke tools to do its job in the new digital media world. But actually I think it should stick to its existing strengths. In the spirit of research, I’ve just visited the Royal College of Art summer graduation show to check out […]