Archive for the ‘irishblogs’ Category

The ESRI Recession Scoop

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

Recession is official. As seen on IrishElection.com first!

Newspapers in Ireland – Bits from a presentation

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

I gave a talk as Conchango last Friday on the present and future of newspapers. (oh and Tom wants a free link to his blog). Nobody remembers what I said exactly as I hid my lack of insight by using XKCD comic strips in each slide to distract them. (Never fails to work)

Google Trends now allows you to see rough site visit information (though many think the data can be way out) but again it’s good for rough estimates. If you log into it you can see the numbers as per the screencaps. If you click the images you’ll see better versions of the images.

Here’s a Trends screencap of visitors to the main Irish Newspaper sites.
Irish newspapers on Google Trends

Oddly, the Examiner’s Breaking News website gets more visits than their main site. I’m sure the fact the Examiner couldn’t stick with a name or a single website address didn’t help either.
Irish newspapers on Google Trends

Now, when you throw in RTE’s website, it shows who the daddy is for online news. Newspapers I hope are starting to realise that they can’t rely just on print alone now for distribution.
Irish newspapers on Google Trends

As I keep on saying and giving out about, they also need to go where the younger generation are going and that’s not a single place anymore. Here’s Newspapers, RTE and Bebo in a graph and this is Irish usage not worldwide usage. Look at all the Irish on Bebo, look at the number visiting the Irish Examiner site:
Irish newspapers on Google Trends

From my perspective:

Current state of Irish newspapers

  • Losing readership. Print revenue down. Charges going up. Becoming more tabloid to get/retain marketshare.
  • Screwing existing journos with less fulltime contracts, getting rid of sub-editors, outsourcing, less resouces. Turnaround time is minutes or hours NOT days.
  • Their journos are lifting stories right, left and centre from blogs. From images to copying and pasting whole blog posts.
  • Associated Press in bed with Google. Google News top story linking to AP headline, not headlines of Boston Globe, National or Local papers.

Blogger Threat

Bloggers are a threat because:

  • Breaking news more.
  • Sources going to bloggers. Sources trust the “real” bloggers more these days.
  • Blogs have better SEO.

What are the Newspapers doing right?

  • Dropping paywalls
  • Making a go of SEO
  • Allowing social bookmarking
  • Allowing comments
  • Bringing their own blogs online
  • Feeds for every section

More is needed

  • Add feeds for each journalist/columnist
  • Heavily exploit email
  • Bebo and Facebook Widgets
  • Distribution API –> Wherever the cool kids hang

Future changes

Aggregate, edit, distribute

  • Newspapers still bastions of balance and quality (for now)
  • A newspaper should promote good work, no matter the source and with it encourage good blogging
  • Finding news sources, journalists, bloggers.
  • Each newspaper should be like AP, offering every article up
  • This will need a full blown API for stock purchase and distribution

Changing work

  • All news is breaking news, people no longer wait for the paper
  • All newspapers need to be media orgs, QIK.com integration?
  • 3 hour radio shows are now 24/7 websites and direct competitors. Remember that.
  • In order to crowdsource, reporting material needs to be shared
  • A DIGG for each paper?
  • Journalists need to share what they are looking at and ask for help – Help a Reporter

New Club Orange ad

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

While I recover from London and the chicken feet and Shark Fin gruel, an ad company sent me this. What’s the url at the end, I couldn’t figure it first time:

Chicken Feet

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

Traditional “Chinese style” chicken feet. Boiled and left to go cold. I doubt I’d have them again.

IMG_0263

Fluffy Links – Friday June 20th 2008

Friday, June 20th, 2008

Off to London for the weekend. Careful now.

Maz has a new blog. Looks great already. Tis called Made Marian.

New blog sur le block. Fitzy’s Cloud.

And another.

Is this the most comprehensive post about Leonard Cohen ever on an Irish blog? Can you tell Bock is a fan?

Una talks about advertising on blogs. Would you do it?

Russell talks about Booklert.

On your last day, what would you do?

The Bank of Common Knowledge. Interesting project.

Flickr founder resigns from Yahoo! Brilliant resignation letter.

Google Streetview car gets busted.

Some films of Chris Maker (of La Jetée fame) have been released. Arty.

In the UK their telecoms regulator has a consumer panel. One that oftentimes smacks down the regulator. They are not hacks that the regulator handpicks to sit on their holes watching the regulator present them with lies and nod like a dog for half a day, get a free lunch, collect €1500 and come back again in 4 months and repeat. Unlike Ireland. This is their annual report.

Master Massey & Shyhhy Welly – If Yer Gettin’ Cows

Review of My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges

Thursday, June 19th, 2008
My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges

Almost perfect. Almost.

It’s hard to believe that this album is a single band. The songs certainly vary a good bit but are all definitely based on classic rock and roll. The album at times reminds me of Lynard Skynard and at times like the Izzy Stradlin penned songs from Guns N Roses. Evil Urges, Aluminium, Highly Suspicious, Librarian and many others all have hints of other rock bands too. Given the current wave of guitary bands where you can’t differentiate between the lead and rhythm guitar, this is refreshing. One of the best albums I’ve heard in years but it does feel like some songs will wear worse than others and will end up being skipped instead of just being tolerated. The album got a thrashing on Pitchfork which is disappointing as it was worth way more than it was given.

Rated 4/5 on Jun 19 2008
Vote on Damien Mulley’s Reviews at LouderVoice
Review Tags: , , , , , ,

Fluffy Links – Thursday June 19th 2008

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

Rick wants bloggers to go to Jay-Z with him. Apply within.

A certain car hire company. Arses.

Boards.ie can’t say someone is banned now if they used their real name as their username? What bollox.

LouderVoice and Bubble Brothers allow you to review your wine purchase.

It’s Gay Pride around the world this week, Google have been rolling out the rainbow flags it seems.

Meanwhile on the same topic one of the politico bloggers talks Equality rights in Ireland.

ComReg hates black people BT.

BBQ Sauce Nazi alert. Woman not allowed to buy Jack Daniel’s BBQ sauce because of lack of ID, then refuse to let her brother buy it as he might give it to her. WTF!

How to do your own ads on Facebook. A video guide!

Deffo needs highlighting. Installing and skinning WordPress. A simple guide.
Via I guess I’m floating:

She and Him – Change is Hard:

Green Party suggest EU-wide referendum post-Lisbon

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

From a Green Party press release:

De Burca suggests EU-wide referendum in 2009

– EU institutions cannot have authority without popular consent says Green Party Europe spokesperson

In today’s Seanad debate on the Lisbon Treaty, Green Party Spokesperson for European Affairs, Senator Deirdre de Burca called for urgent action by the European Union to address the issue of the democratic deficit and the levels of disengagement by citizens from EU institutions which she claims has been evident during referendums that occurred prior to the Lisbon treaty referendum.

“Much of the commentary that has followed the recent No vote of the Irish people to the Lisbon Treaty has concentrated on the challenge that confronts the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, as he faces into a European Council meeting on Thursday,” she said. “It is to be hoped that a sense of European solidarity, so frequently referred to during the recent referendum campaign, will be in evidence when he meets his EU colleagues this week to discuss the way forward. The European Union’s ‘legitimacy’ problems did not begin with the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, which is symptomatic of a wider and more enduring problem within the EU.”

Senator de Burca said that as the areas of competence of the EU institutions expand, it is essential that EU institutions are not seen to have “authority without popular consent”. She argued that if this issue is not addressed by its Member States, it will undoubtedly prove a fatal flaw in what is otherwise a very successful, ambitious and innovative trans-national political project, designed to respond to the challenges of the 21st century.

Is it the job of a PR company to make their clients more “connected”?

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Piaras once again has a great post on his blog about the PR industry and possible futures. This will probably come across as talking the guy down but the quality of his blog posts have really risen in the past year or two and his site is now a destination for insights in to Public Relations for me. Piaras’ blog is a great educational resource. It’d be nice to see him get more comments and attention for it. Also, while we’re on a roll, various people in the media keep chattering amongst each other how impressed they are with his professionalism for organising events and launches and getting the press what they need before they even know they need it. (How’s that swelled head Piaras? 🙂 )

Anyway, to my point. Piaras talks about some PR agencies in Ireland that are using Facebook for advertising some events and the PR agency staff inviting people to various launches and parties.

So ultimately will PR agencies win new business based, not simply on their knowledge of communications techniques, but on how well connected they are with specific audiences?

Slattery Communications in Dublin do this for example and it’s really effective as it gets real people inviting real people to events, it feels more friendly that way but also it turns everyone that accepts an invite to advertise it to their network as well and by publicly listing who is also going, it will probably get people to go based on who else is going. It makes these events more networking focused. Win, win, win.

Queen Elizabeth Park Observatory - 010620082134
Photo owned by roland (cc)

I left a comment on Piaras’ post with my own thoughts but on further thinking I wonder is it also the job of a PR company to make their clients more connected too? Maybe this is already part of their job, I dunno. With the examples of those events on Facebook for example, I wonder should PR companies just run monthly networking events where they bring their clients together to simply network and maybe bring in other people to the event too. Not a sponsored by event or launch of anything event, just a get to know each other event and have their clients get to know more people which can only lead to more connections and a better business environment. PR companies have fantastic contacts as far as I can see and increasing the connections between these contacts would surely enrich everyone?

What music can do

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Via Kottke: Take music from Requiem from a Dream and recut Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and you get: