I’ve moved to Balbert.co.uk

Today I suddenly worked out, which possibly puts me into the category of ‘slow on the uptake’ that Twitter can be used in much the same way (and a lot easier).

Currently compiling a case study on the future of news brands in a digital age, I am constantly checking sources (some of which come from Twitter) for up-to-date, article information from places such as Media Guardian.

Retweeting and hash-tagging articles I read, straight from Twitter, means I can pass on to any interested followers, the things that I find helpful, whilst also creating an archived, personalised reading list.

For example, I’m currently using #futureofprint to file away things of interest to my case study. And I can find them, and only the ones I retweeted, quite easily, like so…

I may be slow, but I got there in the end. Just in time.

The whole thing is part of my final year case study (they don’t like to call it a dissertation) into whether online journalism is killing off the printed newspaper. So, is it?

Spending time at such an established company was a fantastic experience, which has given me a lot of insight. The newspaper version of The Times is still the predominant part of their business model, but it’s exciting to see the way the news industry might be going.

I spent my week working on the Online news desk. During my time I helped film a cookery slot with a Nordic chef, phoned Conservative prospective parliamentary candidates, edited video clips together – the highlight being editing Tony Blair (whose long pauses make editing a dream) at the Iraq Inquiry – and rummaged around footage to transcribe quotes for the next day’s newspaper. I also had to put filming requests to Canary Wharf, several banks and Harrods – none of which seemed to want to be filmed.

Moving away from a description of my week that is perhaps only interesting to myself, this tells a tale of the current news industry.

As we see ITV move away from local news after the digital switchover and as the b organisation usiness behind newspapers slowly collapses, The Times seem to be placing a decent amount of emphasis on their online videos. These videos are prefixed with an advert – presumably more valuable to the news than a static web ad.

It would appear that some newspapers are therefore moving to the BBC way of doing things, albeit in a commercially viable way.

It’s a question I’ve thought about for a while. Obviously, starting out, everyone wants to get into the media business – whether that be newspapers, websites, television, radio – and stay there. The majority of us contribute where we can, to different extents, for free. This is all fair and well, but when does it become acceptable to start asking for fair payment?

Like the childish desire to not miss out when sent to bed in front of visitors, we don’t want to miss out on the ‘big break’ opportunity that might be round the corner. Alternatively, it is unfair for big businesses to continue to use would-be journalists for free, when they should be paid, even a little.

I understand there are wider financial implications, especially in this economic climate, so it’s not as easy as it may appear and some publications, the Guardian being one of them, do pay their interns and work experience reporters.

When is it the time to put up and get all the experience you can, and when is it the time to start requesting some monetary support?

Though only 20, somehow I turn into a grumpy old man when technology is not used ‘properly’. Like Arthur Smith bemoaning roundabouts, Christmas or the internet, I become irritated when the latter is used in a way that is not particularly user-friendly.

And it is not just blatant user-unfriendliness that bothers me. It is the subtle annoyances that grate me most; the “well, social media has happened so let’s deal with it” attitude that I just can’t stand. Little things like having to open a bit.ly link to a Twitpic using TweetDeck. Yes, it’s pedantic but if we kept the TwitPic link it would just open neatly, natively in a lovely little pop-over box.

It’s the bit.;y links that take me to your Facebook page, or your homepage, where I then have to find what I’m looking for by clicking through several other links. No, it’s not the end of the world, but that little something we call bounce rate (literally, the rate at which your visitors ‘bounce’ away from your website after looking at a page) is steadily getting shorter.

I could go on but, for the sake of the sanity of anyone who reads this, I shall not.

It is, to me anyway, these things that make a difference, however. Instead of cutting corners why not employ someone who grew up learning this stuff as a way of life rather than a task to complete? In conclusion, why not employ me? Big smiles.

And so it appears, new Wikipedia users have this same problem- only theirs is, it would appear from the results of a study, entirely justified.

Numbers have been crunched as Wikiepdia reaches its 3 million article mark and the results make for interesting reading. The study suggests:

• If you are an elite editor (the name says it all) you run around a 1% risk that something you edit will be reverted;
• If you make between two and nine edits a month, you’ll see around 15% of your edits reverted;
• If you make only one edit a month, you’re looking at having around 25% of your efforts reverted.

These findings bring about the question of the duality of Wikipedia. The best and perhaps worst thing about it is that everyone and anyone can add information. Though, apparently, they can’t.

Why? Because news is all about communication and a huge iceberg in the ocean of ‘communication’ is a publication that is only released once a month.

Don’t misunderstand me; the Huddersfield Student should only appear once every month. The task of making it a weekly, or even fortnightly, would be far too immense for the relatively small team, made up of a few full-timers but mainly part-timers, it attracts each year.

For me, however, the boundary of communication that the Huddersfield Student is currently patrolling should not stop with its monthly offerings. Instead it should be a constant student voice. And, for a publication with a small budget, what better place to do this than in the kingdom of free- the internet?

Other student publications, Nouse and Cherwell are the first two that spring to mind, have mastered webdesign and programming to make their online presence award winning. Instead of looking to merely compete, we should be looking at going one better and working with everything the internet can offer to make us more than a newspaper and more of a news outlet.

Before we can do this, we need to put the foundations in place and make sure we’re anchored in to the online world. First stop, webspace.

This year, big change will hopefully come to the Huddersfield student media scene. But big change needs small steps. Starting with a section on this blog, I’ll keep you posted on everything that’s planned, upcoming and failing. Feel free to let me know what you think and get involved. I have a feeling I’ll need all the help I can lay my hands on.

Guardian News and Media (GNM) send copies of its Guardian and Observer titles to selected airports and hotels as a way of “sampling to new readers”.

ABC figures show that the Independent and the Independent on Sunday are the worst offenders when it comes to bulk sales with 19% and 22% of their sales, respectively, being as a result of the practise.

GNM have now decided that this is bad practice. Or maybe they’ve have realised a new way to cut some costs. Seemingly, the hope is that by providing more accurate circulation figures will result in better ad revenue when advertisers see the change.

Joe Clark, GNM Director and General Manager, Newspapers, said: “To a greater or lesser degree bulk sales are used by newspaper groups to prop up their ABC figure. Yet their credibility in the ad community is low and for those affected by the recent investigation into airline bulks that credibility has been undermined further.”

“We are abandoning this practice in order to present a clearer, more honest picture of our sales performance to advertisers and to reinforce the quality of our product to readers. The success of our subscription scheme has proved the value of rewarding loyal readers and prompted us to question the merit of subsidising a free copy for an occasional reader.”

“In short dropping this traditional, and in our view, outmoded practice is a win-win move. We hope that others will follow our lead.”

For the time being this appears to be a good way of bringing some short-term stability to the newspaper industry. The cutting of bulk orders will surely lead to a decrease in print run- saving money and the environment- while stronger ad revenues may follow. Long-term, I’m sure, there is much more work to be done.

Unfortunately, I was one of these scramblers. Even more unfortunately, I had only ever heard of Friendfeed and never even visited the website. My job, to bring the news to tech site Gaj-it, was one that became increasingly hard.

As I rushed to find out all the information I could on the deal, I scurried over to Friendfeed to see what service they provided in the hope of finding some little nugget of information or something to help me form an opinion to differ my postings to those of the rest of the Twittersphere.

Not knowing Friendfeed at all, this was not effectively accomplished. Therein lies the brilliance and curse of the internet.

In order to effectively report on anything, you have to either know about it or be able to learn enough about it to write with authority. Especially with technology, where there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who know a lot about a lot, the pressure’s on to get things right and not look like a fool who knows very little.

The case of the Facebook/Friendfeed fiasco exemplifies this well. Learn little bits about everything you can. If a new website opens up; learn what it does, how it does it, join. Even if you don’t stay an active member, at least you’ll know what’s what when it comes to reporting on its demise or acquisition.

The creator of Amazon’s Kindle reckoned their device would replace newspapers but, with Google Reader already available through mobile phone browsers, why bother paying for another device?

Certainly, not everything is available on Google Reader- books, for example, seem to be lacking- however, any RSS feed can be read; making the online version of practically every newspaper available, alongside countless blogs and infinite other news sources.

Why not have everything we read, or want to read, just a few clicks away on the device (or devices) we choose?

For years we’ve been becoming the masters of our own content, or so they say. Now, thanks to Google, we don’t need another piece of hardware to do it.