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Friday 29 July 2011

The phone hacking video catalogue

The phone hacking scandal has inspired (although I'm not sure whether that's quite the right word for it) several parody video efforts. These are the ones I've come across in no particular order and if the story keeps unfolding, then there will probably more soon...

1. NMA.TV

Animated cartoon which (obviously?) imagines the hacking scandal in a world of pirates, missile-launching observation balloons and bi-planes. Includes a Guardian journalist(?) firing a well-aimed cannonball at the News of the World ship and Murdoch as a teleporting man-fish...



2. Rebekah Brooks covers Rebecca Black...(I'd add something more but my knowledge of music is ashamedly limited.)



3. Hackgate (The Movie)

Spoof movie trailer including Hugh Grant as David Cameron and Colin Firth as Hugh Grant...



4. The Daily Show

Englishman John Oliver helps Jon Stewart feel better about the state of his nation...

5. Foam pie thrown at Rupert Murdoch

Hang on...this actually happened...




At the time, somebody on Twitter suggested: "That guy clearly thought he was in the Foam Hacking Select Committee. It was next door. Easy mistake to make."

Monday 18 July 2011

Blogging from Afghanistan, Twitter during Mumbai and bonus stats section

A few bits and pieces that have caught my eye...

'RAF Airman' blog
  • Some interesting posts building on this blog documenting RAF Airman's deployment to Afghanistan. Recently he's been trying to "spot the gorilla"....and also the guerrilla maybe.
Twitter and Mumbai
  • The Economist had an interesting piece about the development of social media crisis communications during the Mumbai bombings. 
  • It was similar in theme to something I wrote for the Frontline Club about the evolution of Twitter use when comparing the 2008 attacks with those in 2011.
The 'random stats' section (as promised)
  • Twitter: "There were 224 Tweets sent on July 15, 2006. Today, users send that many Tweets in less than a tenth of a second."
  • Social Media: "FTSE 100 companies: 56% have official Twitter account, 41% use YouTube and 38% use Facebook"

Friday 15 July 2011

The BBC and social media

There were two important posts on this theme yesterday on the BBC's past and present ventures in online journalism.

1. The BBC's Jem Stone was recently tasked with writing a short history of the BBC's online and social media journey since the 1990s.

Calling on his own experience of being at the heart of a number of projects and dusting off the blog posts of some of his BBC colleagues, he has produced this post which offers a useful timeline of key developments.

2. Meanwhile Chris Hamilton, Social Media Editor for BBC News, has written a post explaining an update to social media guidance for BBC journalists.

The focus here is on Twitter which has been adopted by a wide range of BBC journalists particularly since 2009.

The general social media guidance (pdf) includes a link to a list of the BBC's "official" Twitter accounts which include those of presenters and correspondents.

These official accounts now have a separate set of guidelines. They are checked by editors as they are published and may be incorporated into BBC correspondent pages or other BBC content.

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Real time, all-the-time news and the launch of the Huffington Post UK

The Huffington Post has launched in the UK.

And in an interesting blog post announcing the arrival of the blogging platform-cum-"Internet Newspaper" on this side of the pond, Arianna Huffington - the Post's founder - has me slightly baffled.

For a while she extols the virtue of the Huffington Post's commitment to real-time, all-consuming and interactive coverage:
"At the core of everything we do are engagement, connection ("social"), and a commitment to real-time coverage"
And warming to her theme...
"Our goal is to give our readers a one-stop shop for all the information they need to know...All delivered in real time, on every platform (don't forget to download our smartphone and tablet apps!), and using every possible medium."
She also expects that the Huffington Post's "readers" will want to be fully involved in a "social" news experience...
"And we make it easy for you to be able to not only consume what we are offering, but also become an integral part of the stories we are telling by sharing them, liking them, commenting on them, tweeting them, or posting them on Facebook."
OK, so the news never stops and we're all contributing to it and interacting with it and engaging with it in real time using "every possible medium". The Huffington Post will be successful and make you happy because of its commitment to real-time, interactive, 24/7 coverage.

But apparently the Huffington Post's lifestyle coverage will totally contradict all that. It's committed to "redefining success and happiness":
"The prevailing culture tells us that nothing succeeds like excess, that working 80 hours a week is better than working 70, that being plugged in 24/7 is expected, and that sleeping less and multi-tasking more are an express elevator to the top. Our coverage will beg to differ."
Er, really?

The only way I can see how this particular circle can be squared is if the Post simply left the lifestyle section blank so we can, as Huffington suggests, "unplug", "recharge" and catch up on some sleep...
 
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