Here at Wildfire, we have been monitoring this new social media tool for a while now and are active users. Indeed, we have our own agency feed (@wildfirepr) and are embarking on a number of campaigns for clients involving Twitter in the next few months.
Last week, our interest was rewarded in a list of PR Tweeters [those who Tweet] and in the PR agency league table generated from the list.
Wildfire is currently sitting in a highly respectable joint 11th with seven Tweeters in total so far in our ranks. Not bad Tweeter-employee ratio!
A Crash You Don’t Know About Yet (BiteMarks) - Attention Crash: “the demand for our attention is so intense with the current information overload, that we’re careening towards a massive cut back in what we pay attention to”
Whilst I still appreciate that it is slightly ironic to have a magazine dedicated to digital media, the revamped Revolution really seems to tick all the right boxes.
Revolution lost it’s way somewhat when it changed from a weekly to a monthly title and was unable to properly differentiate itself from rival title NMA.
This has now all changed.
The new magazine perfectly positions itself. It’s not a simple news delivery vehicle; this is never going to work for a monthly, with so many websites doing a better, more immediate job (and with NMA doing its best to pick up the rest). Nor it’s it going to be able to compete with blogs and industry opinions formers; it is not immediate enough to be able to respond. What it can do however, is take a step back. Properly analyse, predict and report on longer term issues, strategies and trends.
And this is demonstrated in the launch issue. The first 14 or so pages are dotted with short, sharp news items (not the same predictable pieces you have read throughout the month), including the innovative ‘world-wide web’ double-page looking at digital stories throughout the world.
A few pages of good quality opinion pieces gives way to a number of feature-like pieces, centering on a longer section looking at Google’s 10th birthday and ’search’ in general. The content isn’t trying to be blog-like, but neither is it page after page of arduous text - effective design and fresh page layout plays a key role here.
The magazine ends with a section entitled “The Work” - a series of case studies and examples of real digital work and innovation in practice: a great addition (if still predictably dominated by the usual big brands and big agencies - when some of the real innovation often occurs lower down the food chain).
Both NMA and Revolution plan to redevelop their websites [long overdue in my humble opinion] and it may be that this is where their future really lies [although they better get a move on as they will soon be eclipsed IMHO].
But Revolution deserves credit for bringing in a new team and working hard to create a publication that stands out from the crowd and fills a niche and a need, that readers (and no doubt advertisers) will welcome.
Tomorrow the FT will launch a new homepage on its FT.com website.
It is quite hard to review the developments in detail until the site is live and can be used, but the screenshots released today show a few interesting changes. Firstly the use of the FT’s iconic ‘pink’ as a background colour (this will apparently be rolled out site-wide in due course). Also, the title is now Financial Times rather than FT.com.
The header also looks very ‘Newspapery’ in design. Indeed, speaking with paidContent:UK, FT.com editor James Montgomery suggests that increasing the parallels between print and online is deliberate. He adds that
“We think the Financial Times is a very strong brand and we want the website to have that core brand identity, not be some separate distant thing that it has been in the past.”
I don’t have a problem with a website trying to look like a newspaper per se and I can understand the thinking behind it. The FT’s brand image is very closely aligned with the print version - I always think of the pin-striped suit/FT-pink combo!
I can remember the Independent trying a similar layout in the past and it never seemed to gel properly. It will be interesting to see how the usability of the homepage works when it is launched tomorrow.
I will also be intigued to see how the ‘incremental’ development process works throughout the rest of the site. This is the route that the Guardian and BBC both adopted for their recent redesigns and, whilst I can see the obvious benefits, with the Guardian in particular, I couldn’t help but feel that the whole site became disjointed and lacked cohesiveness throughout the transitional period.
Journalism.co.uk has an interesting video interview (see below) with Kate Mackenzie, interactive editor for the FT, who describes how the new content management system will help to define the editorial decisions made: “At the moment we have a fairly old-fashioned approach to organising the relationship between stories online, but it’s going to become a lot more dynamic and tag driven.”
This is a more interesting development and embraces the unique ability of a website to help users discover information that is of interest that they might not have discovered otherwise.
The event was chaired by Nico Macdonald (consultant) and the panel included Neil McIntosh (Head of Editorial Development, guardian.co.uk), Justin Williams (Assistant Editor at the Telegraph Media Group), Martin Stabe (online editor, Retail Week), Tim Gopsill (editor of The Journalist) and Mike Rowley, (Director of Digital Publishing – Northcliffe Media)
The debate covered a lot of ground - far too much to discuss in detail here - but I wanted to draw on some of the main themes and I might return in due course to explore certain areas in more detail:
Defining Journalism - In these days where citizen journalists are cropping up everywhere, boundaries between traditional journalists and amateurs are blurring. It will be interesting to see whether the NUJ attempts to tackle this head-on.
Delivery - There was much discussion about how content was delivered by Newspaper organisations (not necessarily through their Newspapers!). In terms of online news, Justin Williams even went so far as to suggest that The Telegraph is experimenting with post-moderation, where journalists would be able to post comments immediately (like bloggers) with editorial moderating occurring after the event. This is essentially designed to speed up the process, as getting news live asap is crucial in digital media, especially with the growth of micro-blogging.
Prism of Newspapers - This is a great phrase and was one of the major takeaways for me. It does seem that so many Newspaper organisations continue to view news through the prism of a Newspaper (and broadcast media through the TV etc.). This is a very dangerous path indeed. The Guardian’s attempt to publish a daily PDF version (not to mention the ability to be able to view the actual paper online!) as well as the ever present (and ever failing) ‘e-reader’ being examples of this frame of mind.
Right content in the right way at the right time - Again, another crucial takeaway. Essentially every consumer of news only ever wants to receive content that is right for them, delivered in the most efficient (and cheapest) way at any one particular time. Yes, I might want to flick through the Metro on the train, but I don’t want to read it in the office, just as I don’t want to glance at the BBC website on my iPhone while sitting in front of the TV. As our requirements and expectations change, the media has to be flexible to adapt and change as well. And technology will undoubtedly be the biggest driver in changing our requirements.
So what is the conclusion?
Personally I don’t see a great future for ‘the Newspaper’. Were I not in PR, I would rarely pay for one. My consumption is naturally online. I know this is partly generational and as a so-called ‘digital native’, I am not ‘the norm’. However the Internet is growing and with the rise of netbooks, portable computers and iPhone-like mobiles, the ultra-portability of digital media is just around the corner.
Mass media should be far from dead, but I think it is struggling. This is especially true of the larger media institutions who are traditionally focused around a Newspaper. These are the organisations that find technology difficult. Despite talented and forward looking employees, they seem to be struggling to change.
I imagine size plays a big in this. This institutions seem to lack the flexibility to change and innovate, but it is possible, as parts of the Guardian, Telegraph and BBC are gradually demonstrating.
I have finally restored my pride in being an American. And this in part thanks to the technology and media used in Barack Obama’s historic campaign and by its brilliant campaigners (including me!). For the first time, we can truly see the impact social media has had on an American election, with thousands of blog posts, messages and comments being made on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and many other social networking mediums. This is something that Mr. Obama’s campaigners clearly saw and that Mr. McCain’s campaign was missing.
Mr. McCain was too traditional, and ignored the pockets of young voters who were ready and willing to make history by choosing not to reach them. Interestingly, young voters are usually not very reliable and historically known to skip voting for a nice day in. This time it was different; young voters showed up in droves to really make a difference to the outcome of the election. All the while, they were influencing their wide networks to follow their lead, and having extensive dialogues where they argued for one candidate or another. The 2008 election has proved that it is no longer enough to target the traditional media, it is important to speak to each and every single person through mediums that they are likely to pay attention to. The internet has officially become a powerful campaign tool.
Social media has also been used to follow the results of the election. Many people were posting the results on Myspace and Twitter as they came in, and early celebrations for Mr. Obama’s victory were happening on the blogosphere. Traditional news outlets were hesitant in calling it a victory for the Democrats, so it was impossible to follow the election on television. I had to turn to blogs to calm my anxiety, and see that Mr. Obama was indeed far ahead of his opponent.
Obviously it is not just social media that influenced the outcome of the election. The main theme of Mr. Obama’s campaign was change, as many Americans were simply tired of witnessing their country becoming a world pariah, held back by conservative policies that instead of keeping the United States as a country people respected, made its policies and ideals challenged throughout the world.
Most importantly, it was great to see that on the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s death, America was finally ready to elect its first black president. This is a very proud moment for me, because it shows that the extensive history of segregation is finally behind the Americans, and that Dr. King’s dream is finally becoming a reality. The USA is a country filled with diversity, and made all the richer for it, so what better way of celebrating this than making Mr. Obama its Commander-in-Chief?
PS: I also feel it is appropriate to include a quick guide to how the Electoral College works so as to clear any confusion anyone might have.
The Electoral College is made of elected representatives who officially and formally select the US President and Vice President. It may surprise you to know that despite all talk that Mr. Obama has won, the Electoral College will not officially cast its vote until the 15th of December. The American voter casts their vote for the electors, and although the electors can vote for whichever candidate they choose, they make a pledge to vote for a specific candidate (which is how we know at this point that Mr. Obama has won as he has the most pledges, adding to over 270 votes).
The Electoral College has 538 votes, however, to become President, 270 need to be won. Each state has a number of electors matching the number of Senators and Congress representatives. Washington DC, although not a state, is also given a number of electors equal to the number of electors held by the least populous state. If no presidential candidate has the majority votes, the matter is then passed to the House of Representatives.
There is a great post over on the BBC Internet Blog, in which Adam Hutchinson reveals the work he has done examining how BBC viewers consume and share media:
“In early 2008, we studied how people find, play, personalise and share programmes across different devices and services - like BBC iPlayer, Sky+, YouTube, peer-to-peer and traditional TV and radio. We discovered what is important for people and what problems they face. “
As has already been seen to some extent, the growth of digital technologies radically increases the number of ways in which we are able to consume all types of media and, through it, information. TV is a good example of how this is happening in practice, but there are similar trends occuring everywhere. And, as Adam discusses, this very neatly moves into obvservations around social technologies and how we share and broadcast information ourselves to our friends, peers and even strangers.
As Adam highlights, one of the major developments is choice. Whereas previously all our TV viewing would likely have been focused around only a few channels, now we have vastly increased options, not to mention PPV, Sky+ and the iPlayer to name a few. This choice exists online too with the exponential increase of information sources, from blogs and news portals to social media and instant messaging.
Added to this is the ‘democratisation of media’, through which we are encouraged to broadcast our own thoughts and feelings far and wide and ‘engage’ in conversations and discussions.
The way in which we link all these different actions is something I find really fascinating. Are we more likely to share a blog post through social media as opposed to news we read in a newspaper through word of mouth? Do we prefer to consume certain types of information through specific media channels?
As Adam states, the really exiciting element is when ‘the media’ starts to use this information to change the way they operate and improve the user experience. And from a PR viewpoint, this also has obvious, far-reaching implications and considerations.
I’m off to an event tonight looking at the future of newspapers, and I expect that some of the themes explored here will be debated there in more detail…
I must say, I’m impressed.
Tomorrow the FT will launch a new homepage on its 
