I was briefly listening to the radio this morning and heard about an article in todays Sunday Express. Not a newspaper i would normally go anywhere near, by the way.
In the article, they were worrying about the effect watching tv on the BBC iPlayer etc was having on the children of today. The fear being that children were turning up to school too tired to concentrate on their school work. Because they'd been sitting up in bed half the night watching tv programmes on their iPads, or smart phones.
And this is news?
I was doing exactly the same kind of thing about 40 years ago.
The only difference being that back then i was probably listening to Radio Luxembourg, or a pirate radio station, instead of watching tv.
Many other children at that time, were also hiding under the covers, but reading a book, or a magazine that they just couldn't put down, or it was something that they didn't want their parents to see them reading.
I'm sure we've all been in this situation at some time in our lives, especially as children?
The only difference today is that the technology has moved on in leaps and bounds. We've gone from books, magazines and medium wave radio to wireless Internet, iPads and smart phones.
I'm now a parent myself and i'd be very surprised if my children were not doing exactly as the Sunday Express "exposes".
Exactly what i did myself when i was a child, all those years ago.
People are just the same as they've always been. It's just the technology that changes.
And, rather ironically, Express Newspapers do have their very own iPad App should you want to download it.
So, you can read that article in the comfort of your own bed tonight.
Just don't tell your children!
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Showing posts with label newspaper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label newspaper. Show all posts
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Sunday, 10 October 2010
What A Week.
Well, what an interesting week this has been.
Links as mentioned:
AudioBoo:
http://audioboo.fm/boos/193773-hastin...
http://audioboo.fm/boos/194217-hastin...
http://audioboo.fm/boos/195222-hastin...
Phtots:
http://twitpic.com/photos/andymooseman
Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-0GPu...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWCb2D...
And, wouldn't you know it. Whilst putting these links here, i've found out that my Pier memories video is now a featured video on YouTube!
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Well Done Everyone.
I posted a blog post, earlier today, on my Social Media Journeys blog. It was called "Citizen Journalists" and relayed my own experiences yesterday. The day that Hastings Pier burned.
In it i mentioned how i had used various social media sites to get my photos, video & audio podcasts onto the Internet and how they had been spread by others and then used by other sites.
But, i was by no means the only local person who did this and that is what i want to recognise in this blog post.
I want to say "Well done everyone", to all of those local people who helped to show the world what was happening in our town yesterday. Without us, the coverage would have been nowhere near as extensive, especially in those early hours of this major news story.
When i first got down to the seafront and the pier, at just before 6.30am yesterday. There were no media people to be seen anywhere. Not even from our local newspaper, the Hastings Observer.
One of their reporters did turn up a bit later, on his own and without a photographer. I think i even over heard him saying that he couldn't get hold of anyone on his phone!
This was a major news story, possibly the biggest the town of Hastings has had for many years and there were no local news reporters present to record it. Or, any other media outlets for that matter. Even though the pier had been burning for over 5 hours at that point.
So, what did the established local and national media have to do? They had to rely on you and me, the citizen reporters.
We were the people whose photos and videos appeared on numerous news websites and social media sites generally.
We were the people who were on the scene first and who captured the really defining images. Those powerful images of the pier burning in the darkness, or in the early morning light. Before the media cavalry arrived.
I have seen video and photo's from many local people used on various tv programmes, news websites and even national newspapers.
One local photographer, Andy Wilson, who i know via Twitter, had one of his photos used by The Guardian newspaper, as it's lead front page image
Well done Andy.
We were also ably assisted by all those other locals who passed on our images etc. Whether by Twitter, email or other means. You also helped to get this historic story "out there".
I only hope that the efforts of our local citizen reporters is appreciated when the Hastings Observer brings out it's special "Hastings Pier burns" edition this Friday.
I think it is only fitting that they are. After all, it was us who provided the world with those first dramatic images of that dreadful fire.
I could now go off into another rant and maybe i will, about how woeful the Hastings Observer were with their initial coverage of the story. About how they were comprehensively beaten to the story by the Brighton Argus, amongst others.
I was contacted, via Twitter, by the Brighton Argus asking for permission to use my material, at 09.00. My YouTube video was linked on their website by 09.20 that morning. They also had one of my photos on their site, by the same time.
By contrast, the first Tweet of the day from the Hastings Observer was at 10.30am.
It wasn't until around this time that any mention of this huge local story first appeared on the Hastings Observer website. I could go on, but.....
So, well done everyone.
You did your town proud yesterday.
You recorded a little piece of history. And it's just as well that you did. Because there was nobody else there to do it for us.
And for that, the whole town and the media world in general, should be eternally grateful.
PS: For a local poets version of events. Watch this. It's well worth it.
In it i mentioned how i had used various social media sites to get my photos, video & audio podcasts onto the Internet and how they had been spread by others and then used by other sites.
But, i was by no means the only local person who did this and that is what i want to recognise in this blog post.
I want to say "Well done everyone", to all of those local people who helped to show the world what was happening in our town yesterday. Without us, the coverage would have been nowhere near as extensive, especially in those early hours of this major news story.
When i first got down to the seafront and the pier, at just before 6.30am yesterday. There were no media people to be seen anywhere. Not even from our local newspaper, the Hastings Observer.
One of their reporters did turn up a bit later, on his own and without a photographer. I think i even over heard him saying that he couldn't get hold of anyone on his phone!
This was a major news story, possibly the biggest the town of Hastings has had for many years and there were no local news reporters present to record it. Or, any other media outlets for that matter. Even though the pier had been burning for over 5 hours at that point.
So, what did the established local and national media have to do? They had to rely on you and me, the citizen reporters.
We were the people whose photos and videos appeared on numerous news websites and social media sites generally.
We were the people who were on the scene first and who captured the really defining images. Those powerful images of the pier burning in the darkness, or in the early morning light. Before the media cavalry arrived.
I have seen video and photo's from many local people used on various tv programmes, news websites and even national newspapers.
One local photographer, Andy Wilson, who i know via Twitter, had one of his photos used by The Guardian newspaper, as it's lead front page image
Well done Andy.
We were also ably assisted by all those other locals who passed on our images etc. Whether by Twitter, email or other means. You also helped to get this historic story "out there".
I only hope that the efforts of our local citizen reporters is appreciated when the Hastings Observer brings out it's special "Hastings Pier burns" edition this Friday.
I think it is only fitting that they are. After all, it was us who provided the world with those first dramatic images of that dreadful fire.
I could now go off into another rant and maybe i will, about how woeful the Hastings Observer were with their initial coverage of the story. About how they were comprehensively beaten to the story by the Brighton Argus, amongst others.
I was contacted, via Twitter, by the Brighton Argus asking for permission to use my material, at 09.00. My YouTube video was linked on their website by 09.20 that morning. They also had one of my photos on their site, by the same time.
By contrast, the first Tweet of the day from the Hastings Observer was at 10.30am.
It wasn't until around this time that any mention of this huge local story first appeared on the Hastings Observer website. I could go on, but.....
So, well done everyone.
You did your town proud yesterday.
You recorded a little piece of history. And it's just as well that you did. Because there was nobody else there to do it for us.
And for that, the whole town and the media world in general, should be eternally grateful.
PS: For a local poets version of events. Watch this. It's well worth it.
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Reading The Future?
In Britain fairly recently, we had a national postal strike.
As can be imagined, this caused a lot of disruption to postal services. The effects were felt for far longer than the actual strike, because of the backlog of mail that built up.
Because of this, some companies that rely on the Royal Mail service, started to make alternative arrangements to get their products to their customers. One of those may well have some implications for the future.
Like a lot of people, i subscribe to magazines. All of which have to be delivered by post.
During the postal strike, two of the magazines that i subscribe to, one a weekly publication & the other a monthly one, decided to start a service whereby a link was sent by email to all subscribers. This email link linked to a special online version of the full magazine. This e-magazine was a full replica of the published version & even has turnable pages. It can also be magnified to highlight parts of text.
This is a very clever little bit of programming that allows this to happen & i should inagine that it's a pretty recent development too. But, i truly believe that this is a pointer to the future for both magazines & possibly even newspapers too.
One reason for this thought is that both magazines, "Word Magazine" & "The Week", have found that their subscribers like the e-magazine so much, that they have both decided to make this a permanent arrangement. Now, when a new edition of the magazine comes out, i get an email, complete with the link to the e-version.
I have already set up special email folders to save these links. Thus giving me a permanent link to the magazines. I don't even have to store, or even read my paper copy anymore.
This is surely a sign of things to come?
Another thing that these two magazines have in common, is that neither of them has a website that allows you to read their content online. Yes, they both have a website & in the case of "Word Magazine" a very good one too. But, you can't read the magazine there, you have to subscribe to do that.
To me at least, i think this is a very sensible arrangement & one i fully support.
Now, contrast this arrangement with what most other magazines & especially newspapers do.
Most of them allow you to read most, if not all, of their content online & for free too.
I'm sure we've all seen the news coverage of Rupert Murdoch & News International complaining about Google allowing anyone to search for their content & then access it online for free.
Whilst i can see why Rupert Murdoch is not happy, surely this situation is of his own making?
You can't really complain that people are either not buying a physical copy of your newspaper, or that they are unwilling to pay to view it online, when the newspaper has it's own website which shows the newspapers content, for the whole world to see & for free too!
Am i missing something here?
I have no doubt that people would be willing to pay for content. But, they are not going to do that when that same content is freely & legally available elsewhere.
So, why don't Rupert Murdoch & other news organisations go down the same route that magazines such as "The Week" & "Word Magazine" have done?
I think one reason might be that they all rushed into creating websites for their various publications, thinking that they had to get on the bandwagon & not get left behind by the competition.
By doing this, they have now created an audience for online reading & have even allowed more people to read their output than ever before.
Unfortunately, a lot of these people will be casual readers. How many of those casual readers would actually pay good money to read that relevant publication? I guess we'll never know.
My challenge to Rupert Murdoch etc would be.
If you are really serious about getting people to pay for your online content & even encourage people back to buying a hard copy of your newspapers. Shut down the free, official, websites of your newspapers & then charge people to view them. Or, send your paying subscribers an email link, to enable them to view the newspaper online.
I have a funny feeling that Mr Murdoch will not take this course of action. But, if he did, it would most likely solve the Google problem in one fell swoop.
I think 2010 could be an interesting year in the newspaper & magazine publishing world.
As can be imagined, this caused a lot of disruption to postal services. The effects were felt for far longer than the actual strike, because of the backlog of mail that built up.
Because of this, some companies that rely on the Royal Mail service, started to make alternative arrangements to get their products to their customers. One of those may well have some implications for the future.
Like a lot of people, i subscribe to magazines. All of which have to be delivered by post.
During the postal strike, two of the magazines that i subscribe to, one a weekly publication & the other a monthly one, decided to start a service whereby a link was sent by email to all subscribers. This email link linked to a special online version of the full magazine. This e-magazine was a full replica of the published version & even has turnable pages. It can also be magnified to highlight parts of text.
This is a very clever little bit of programming that allows this to happen & i should inagine that it's a pretty recent development too. But, i truly believe that this is a pointer to the future for both magazines & possibly even newspapers too.
One reason for this thought is that both magazines, "Word Magazine" & "The Week", have found that their subscribers like the e-magazine so much, that they have both decided to make this a permanent arrangement. Now, when a new edition of the magazine comes out, i get an email, complete with the link to the e-version.
I have already set up special email folders to save these links. Thus giving me a permanent link to the magazines. I don't even have to store, or even read my paper copy anymore.
This is surely a sign of things to come?
Another thing that these two magazines have in common, is that neither of them has a website that allows you to read their content online. Yes, they both have a website & in the case of "Word Magazine" a very good one too. But, you can't read the magazine there, you have to subscribe to do that.
To me at least, i think this is a very sensible arrangement & one i fully support.
Now, contrast this arrangement with what most other magazines & especially newspapers do.
Most of them allow you to read most, if not all, of their content online & for free too.
I'm sure we've all seen the news coverage of Rupert Murdoch & News International complaining about Google allowing anyone to search for their content & then access it online for free.
Whilst i can see why Rupert Murdoch is not happy, surely this situation is of his own making?
You can't really complain that people are either not buying a physical copy of your newspaper, or that they are unwilling to pay to view it online, when the newspaper has it's own website which shows the newspapers content, for the whole world to see & for free too!
Am i missing something here?
I have no doubt that people would be willing to pay for content. But, they are not going to do that when that same content is freely & legally available elsewhere.
So, why don't Rupert Murdoch & other news organisations go down the same route that magazines such as "The Week" & "Word Magazine" have done?
I think one reason might be that they all rushed into creating websites for their various publications, thinking that they had to get on the bandwagon & not get left behind by the competition.
By doing this, they have now created an audience for online reading & have even allowed more people to read their output than ever before.
Unfortunately, a lot of these people will be casual readers. How many of those casual readers would actually pay good money to read that relevant publication? I guess we'll never know.
My challenge to Rupert Murdoch etc would be.
If you are really serious about getting people to pay for your online content & even encourage people back to buying a hard copy of your newspapers. Shut down the free, official, websites of your newspapers & then charge people to view them. Or, send your paying subscribers an email link, to enable them to view the newspaper online.
I have a funny feeling that Mr Murdoch will not take this course of action. But, if he did, it would most likely solve the Google problem in one fell swoop.
I think 2010 could be an interesting year in the newspaper & magazine publishing world.
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