Oh sweet jesus this is good. So good it had to be blogged right away. We’ve all seen these mashes before but never as a cabinet meeting:
[youtube ADbTCSuNSms]
Cowen’s Downfall
June 24th, 2008Saving Irish companies from Social Media Crooks
June 24th, 2008I think the IIA Social Media Working Group which has just been formed has come out just in the nick of time. “Social media” is the new hot thing (despite being around for a few years) and just like in every gold rush you get the devious, duplicitous, defrauding, dodgy types who will tell you and sell you any lie they can in order to remove you from your money, “social media” already seems to have the scammer types in this new field. This probably won’t be the main remit but I do think this group will stop SMEs and larger companies from being ripped off and conned just by existing. Thank the gods. Imagine if we had such a group when SEO and Search Marketing started off. Or blogging? Maybe less people would have gotten screwed on blog installs?
The lineup of people in the group is impressive too with a good deal of people (most in fact) talking the talk walking the walk (edit: apologies, I meant walking!) and they are blogging, podcasting, twittering, facebooking and friendfeeding. This is exactly what’s needed. A group that’s already immersed.
Some of the folks on the Social Media Working Group are:
Krishna De, Bernie Goldbach, Niall Devine, Fred Herrera, Brendan Hughes, Gordon Jenkinson, Mike Kelly, Fintan Lonergan, Philip MacCartney, John McGuinness, Aisling McMahon, Kieran Murphy, Bartley O’Connor, Kieran O’Hea, Joy Redmond, Keith Shirley, and Roseanne Smith.
Photo owned by unusualimage (cc)
I’m sure the IIA will bring out their whitepapers in time but here’s a short list of things I’d suggest in order to spot the clueless “consultants” who are pitching to you:
- If people tell you creating a skinned mySpace profile or Bebo profile is social media “engagement”, don’t hire them.
- If they tell you stuff on social networks can’t be measured, don’t hire them.
- If they tell you to create a company “personality” as a profile on Facebook and add people to it then shoot them in the face. FB will crucify you for this.
- If their only suggestion about social networks is to buy banner ads, don’t hire them.
- If they tell you set your blog up on wordpress.com or blogger.com, don’t hire them and tell me where they live.
- If they tell you that you can buy links for your site, don’t hire them.
- If they tell you to ghostwrite your blog, don’t hire them.
That list could go on and on.
Anyway, three cheers for this IIA Working Group.
Are these helpful members of the Garda Siochana?
June 24th, 2008Found here and stuck on youtube now. They seem to admit they’re detectives. Sound is out of synch. I too think returning the trolley is the most important thing.
[youtube 7wCXb77VOSo]
Edit: *waves to the Gardai visiting from the Garda.ie computer network*
Fluffy Links – Tuesday June 24th 2008
June 24th, 2008What have the Romans Greens ever done for us?
Captain America’s in Cork. Never fails. At being shit.
Busted. Julian catches a supplier out. Meanwhile he has a nice recipe for gumbo. Yum.
Nick’s blog is a journal about his son Jacob who has down syndrome.
Via Alan. This is how you make physics fun.
Mad. AVG antivirus is inflating website stats due it scanning your browser cache. Also bad for bandwidth bills.
I like this take. Russell doesn’t have time to blog now that he works from home.
Rob (we’re buds now so I can call him that) used glory-hole in a review of tech. Time to up the game.
Good post from Des on starting a WordPress based blog.
Classic scene from a classic movie:
[youtube TROhlThs9qY]
Google Cache helps leak new Google AdPlanner Product
June 24th, 2008Google To Announce New Audience Measurement Initiative @ AM 3.0
At 5:00 p.m., on Tuesday, June 24, 2008, at the ARF AM 3.0 Conference in New York, Wayne Lin, Google Business Product Manager, will introduce Google’s latest initiative in internet audience measurement. This public announcement will be followed by moderated panel and audience reaction.
The ESRI Recession Scoop
June 23rd, 2008Recession is official. As seen on IrishElection.com first!
Newspapers in Ireland – Bits from a presentation
June 23rd, 2008I 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.
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.
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.
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:
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
June 23rd, 2008While 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:
[youtube nTB1e5D1AFM]
Chicken Feet
June 22nd, 2008Traditional “Chinese style” chicken feet. Boiled and left to go cold. I doubt I’d have them again.
Fluffy Links – Friday June 20th 2008
June 20th, 2008Off 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?
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
[youtube 4U1tW_O3sVA]