An open letter to Sir Tim and his new best pals at Vodafone: One way in which we might empower Africa to pay their own way web-wise…

21 March 2010 – 3:06 pm

Like the rest of modern humanity, I’ve long walked in the shadow of Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Our paths almost crossed in Vegas one-time as a combination of MyLocalWriter and Addiply made it to the final round of the 2008 Knight News Challenge only to be pipped at the post by Sir Tim and Martin Moore with their ‘kite-mark’ thinking.

‘Pipped’, as in by a country mile. For me, it remains a killer application as we all seek to prove our worth and our value out there in Web-land.

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2008/05/23/sir-tim-i-take-it-all-back-with-the-glorious-benefit-of-hindsight-you-have-an-absolute-killer-of-an-application-on-your-hands/

Whether our paths do ever cross again remains a wholly moot point; Sir Tim is clearly – and rightly – a man in huge demand.

But having read this the other day, it would be nice to drop at least one memo into the great man’s in-tray…

http://www.webfoundation.org/2010/03/vodafone-donates-1-million-in-support-of-web-foundation-initiatives/

Because if the World Wide Web Foundation and their new best pals at Vodafone are on a quest to discover web-based tools and applications that can help empower the next generation of African entrepreneurs, then I think we might be able to help…

Ever since Matthew Buckland of www.24.com called on the World Association of Newspapers to find an ad model that delivered a 90% return to publishers… http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2009/03/27/it-would-appear-that-matthew-buckland-has-a-plan-for-the-world-association-of-newspapers-the-same-plan-that-linda-clive-and-the-people-of-darwen-are-working-on/ …cracking that African nut has always interested me.

Addiply, of course, does just that – delivers a 90% revenue return to publishers. Be they www.24.com or potentially, say, a farmers’ co-operative website in Ghana. That, maybe, ad-network wise, we had something vaguely akin to a wind-up, clockwork radio.

I only say Ghana because that was the last time I spotted Sir Tim; wandering around a maize plantation in Ghana in the company of a mobile-stroke-web minded farmer and @aleksk of ‘Virtual Revolution’ fame.

But – and here we’re into scribbling on the back of fag packet territory again – if, say, that Ghanaian farmers co-operative website looked to try and cover its monthly hosting costs by dropping a Google AdSense/Double-Click device into its back-end, I’d be amazed if they weren’t presented with ads for Ghanaian hotels and safaris.

Neither of which would do much for their click-through returns.

Equally, there might be a Ghanaian seed merchant who might be looking to market his wares on a local, digital platform. Could he oust that same Ghanaian five-star safari lodge ad from said co-op site?

Maybe I do those marvellous, intuitive people beneath Mountain View a disservice; if so, I humbly apologise. But if Phil and Co can’t get www.thelichfieldblog.co.uk to deliver much more than ‘B&B in Lichfield’ ads, then I’m not sure either our farmers co-op site or his potential seed merchant advertiser in Ghana would fare much better.

Deploy something that was simple, three-click and offered a 90% revenue return and the seed merchant would get an opportunity to market his wares to an appropriate audience; the farmers co-operative website would get the chance to cover their hosting costs… the chance to make them a ‘not-for-loss’ proposition.

Could they not do that with the AdSense/Double-Click proposition? Maybe. But there was a very interesting line hidden away in Steve Outing’s recent piece on the value/virtues of Kachingle…

http://steveouting.com/2010/03/15/my-blog-earned-65-08-via-crowd-funding/

That: ‘Looking at my Google AdSense earnings from this blog, for comparison, I note that the monthly figure is usually in the low one-figures…’

Could a Ghanaian farmer get the same piece of kit to beat US media commentator S Outing and his ‘low one-figure’ return?

OK. Clearly one of the barriers to entry will be the PayPal take-up across Africa; or the lack of it. Not everyone has a credit card. Or, indeed, a bank account.

And for Addiply to offer a tool that enables said Ghanaian farmers co-op to offer a 5 Ghanaian Cedi/week ad space to, say, a Ghanaian seed merchant, ideally that same transaction would be fully automated.

That, however, might be coming; cue this…. http://www.techmasai.com/2010/03/is-paypal-coming-to-south-africa-they-are-according-to-techcentral/

More intriguingly still, however, is this baby… http://www.mobile-financial.com/node/4447/Vodafone-to-launch-its-mobile-money-transfer-service-M-PESA-in-South-Africa

A mobile phone payment system delivered via… Vodafone. Now bolt that onto an Addiply back-end. Oooh… that’s interesting…

Of course, Addiply is an open ad network. Which means – with the addition of our new richer media suite – we can offer the chance for ‘national’ brands to drill their Flash-supported banners, buttons, skys, MPUs etc down into highly-targetted areas… in a very cost-effective manner.

Brands like, Oxfam. AIDS awareness campaigns…

We can drill ‘mesaaging’ into famine hit areas via an MPU slot; we can drop agricultural educational videos into said Ghanaian farmers co-op website… enhancing their seasonal yields whilst at the same time rewarding said website for their digital publishing efforts… turning them from, potentially, a ‘not-for-loss’ proposition into one that offers a small profit.

Which can make the world of difference.

I’ve never been to Africa. Always strikes me, however, that it is a continent teeming with budding entrepreneurs; all they ever want is the right tools to do certain jobs.

Simple, robust tools that they can tweak and twidde with along the way. Discover what works for them. On the streets.

Give them the right tool for the job, you then just sit back and let them get on with it. Empower them to build a better future for themselves, themselves.

That’s all they ever ask. And I think – albeit on the back of a fag-packet - we can deliver.

Albeit, perhaps with a little help from Sir Tim and his friends…

By Rick Waghorn | Posted in Advertising, General | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

One tiny, little milesone on the streets of Lichfield this evening; perhaps we don’t all need to bow to our former masters, pay rent to our lords…

18 March 2010 – 10:54 pm

It has always been the little victories that mean so much more around here.

One happened tonight in the City of Lichfield.

Here it is… http://thelichfieldblog.co.uk/2010/03/18/council-leader-concerned-by-plans-for-new-rail-line-through-lichfield/

You have to scroll down to see it. But it’s the banner ad. For these boys… http://www.lichfieldpc.co.uk/

A computer shop in Lichfield.

Run, I believe, by a lad called Nick Brickett. Who, I suspect, is a pal of Philip John, who helps run http://thelichfieldblog.co.uk/

In one sense, that’s by the by. Because to my mind, for a lad who is flogging digital gear-stroke-PCs, it makes perfect sense to be placing brand ‘lichfieldpc’ in front of the 11,000-plus uniques that the LichfieldBlog now attracts.

For a tenner a month.

That – and, sure, I’m biased – all makes perfect sense.

And it probably didn’t require Phil’s pal Nick to go to an ad agency or a marketing guru to decide that that wasn’t a bad place to place his ad; he could probably work that out for himself.

That he wanted to be there… on LichfieldBlog. Because he’s a LichfieldPC shop. Not much point in putting his ad on, say, Tamworth Blog because Tamworth people will, by and large, go to the PC shop in Tamworth. It’s nearer; it’s local.

All that was required for LichfieldPC shop to place a richer media ad on a Lichfield hyper-local news blog was a piece of kit. A connecting tool. A way for Nick to place his nice-looking, richer media ad in front of the appropriate eye-balls for a fair and sensible price.

http://www.addiply.com/index.php?option=com_addiply&Itemid=69&r1=1&r2=33

There we go… a tenner. For a month. OK… I can see that… ‘Select’… place my url there; my tenner into the PayPal meter; Phil approves it… job done. Simple.

Perfect. And the LichfieldBlog is now another nine pounds the richer; nine pounds a month nearer to becoming a ‘not-for-loss’ proposition.

[Update 19/03/10: Nick and his PC shop aren't the only banner ad show in town... within 24 hours, TheLichfieldBlog has picked up a second banner advertiser... who is now rotating through that same slot... http://sabcat.com/

... if you can't see it first time, just refresh the page... http://thelichfieldblog.co.uk/2010/03/18/police-keen-to-speak-to-cctv-pair-over-theft-from-lichfield-shop/ 

Two, local banner advertisers in the space of 24 hours; that's interesting...]

Why’s this so interesting? Where’s the little victory?

Well, for one thing, it proves – in our usual, tiny beta trial way – that you don’t have to bolt DoubleClick onto a Google algorithm to deliver a richer media ad banner into a perfectly-targetted spot.

Nick can do that himself, thank you… we don’t always have to be enslaved to an algorithm.

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2010/03/04/selling-advertising-has-always-been-a-people-thing-its-what-ad-reps-did-they-gave-selling-a-human-touch-and-nothings-changed/

And, again, that this is an act of ’sociable media’; of people buying off people, not machines.

It also chimed very well with what at least one journalist got to take away from this week’s South By South-West jamboree…

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=179804

Three cheers for Matt Waite, senior news technologist, St. Petersburg Times

‘Maybe what our online business model needs isn’t more whiz-bang, but some simplicity.

The solution? Stop selling CPMs.

‘Only use sponsorships, which pay for time in front of your audience rather than impressions. Never sell an ad that cheapens your site (berry cures and fat pills and shady mortgage refinance offers).

‘Ideally, only sell ads for products you use and think your audience would use. By doing this, publishers can create scarcity and break out of the race for the bottom…’

Perfect. ‘Only sell ads for products you use and think your audience would use…’

And again: ‘Only use sponsorships, which pay for time in front of your audience…’

Bingo. Sell per month. Do people reading the LichfieldBlog have need of a PC occasionally? Probably; they might not be able to read the LichfieldBlog otherwise… 

But the biggest thing for me about tonight’s little act of local advertising goes back to Mr C Hill and his thoughts on ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ – that fascinating period in English history when The Diggers and The Levellers came to town and tried to build a ‘common treasury for all’…

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2009/12/30/as-2010-looms-perhaps-we-need-to-party-like-its-1649-not-1499-and-to-recognise-that-maybe-the-world-is-indeed-turning-upside-down/

Because The Diggers, The Levellers and their revolutionary like were trying to create a new world order; one in which they were all free men. And this is the line; from Hill’s introduction…

That he was attempting to chart… ‘the attempts of various groups of the common people to impose their own solutions to the problems of their time, in opposition to the wishes of their betters…’  

Rupert doesn’t want Phil, Ross, Nick and the people of Lichfield to find their own solution to the problems of our media time; he wants them to ‘bow to the masters, pay rent to the lords…’

And nor do a whole host of others out there; they want to impose their solution on the City of Lichfield from on high; from above.

Me? I want people to find their own solutions from the bottom up; to work out for themselves what works for their community, for their neighbour, for their ‘audience’ – as much as it ever is ‘them’ and ‘us’ now.

And if Addiply can be one, tiny tool that empowers The Diggers and The Levellers of Lichfield to defy their former news masters and not pay rent to their former media lords, then brilliant.

Job done.

 

By Rick Waghorn | Posted in Advertising, General, Journalism | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

A belated welcome to MyFootballWriter ‘Lite’ and a few more lessons learned en route to over-throwing the bureaucrats.

13 March 2010 – 3:49 pm

Apologies in advance; there may be several strands of thinking afoot here that might not actually contribute to a coherent whole.

Part of this post is designed to explain what we’ve done with www.myfootballwriter.com of late; part of it is designed to publicly thank both Neil Mason (@Neil_Mason) and Philip John (@PhilipJohn) for their invaluable role therein; and a part of it is designed to try and put our on-going experiences with MFW into a wider media setting as bureaucrats the world over continue to flounder…

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2009/05/24/at-what-point-in-schumpeter-time-does-newmarks-original-heresy-become-network-orthodoxy-in-the-bureaucrats-boardroom/

That remains a lovely line from Bill Thompson’s pal Will Davies… 

‘He [Bill's friend, Will Davies..] points out that the creative destruction described by Schumpeter is, of necessity, destructive. Old practices are abandoned, old companies die, and new ways of being, doing and making money emerge to replace them.

‘This is not a weakness, not a failure, but an inherent property of industrial capitalism and those who complain about it simply do not understand the rules of the game they are playing…’

Which, I’d suggest, is an argument that you could easily apply to, say, the Commission Of Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society and the notion that £100 million worth of ‘Google Tax’ could ride to the rescue of the provincial newspaper industry… the same industry that kissed goodbye to £500 mill in 2009…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/13/newspapers-internet

IMHO, to quote Davies again, they simply ‘do not understand the rules of the game they are playing…’

In the view of Marc Andreessen, of course, the rules of the game demand that the newspaper industry switch off their print presses now. Like tomorrow… take the hurt; ditch the legacy costs…

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/12/newsosaurs-extinction/

It is not a new call; he was making it in the autumn of 2008… exhorting newspapers to go on the ‘offense’ and not head for the nearest bunker to hunker down therein in the hope that this whole web thing would kind of go away… that someone, to quote Mr Shirky, would kindly invent a ‘time machine’ to transport them and their beleagured industry back to another century.

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2008/11/10/somewhere-in-between-total-offense-and-fort-dunlop-like-defense-there-ought-to-be-a-way-forward-in-theory/

Of late, most of my waking thoughts and hours have been devoted to all things Addiply; my role within the relaunch of a Mark III MyFootballWriter was strictly limited.

And like all build jobs, we’ve still got a snagging list to do… certain frames ‘bust’; the #ncfc and #itfc Twitter feeds don’t push through as quickly as they should; we have a blocked pipe; frustrating on match days when the conversation is at its peak.

But, for me, there are parts of MFW ‘Lite’ that could point towards a way forward. For example, we now have an Ipswich site http://ipswichtown.myfootballwriter.com/ that exactly matches its Norwich ’sister’ http://norwichcity.myfootballwriter.com/ … as much as the two siblings ever get on. We could deliver a Colchester (again) tomorrow.

We have two, part-time ‘curators’ of that site in Tom north of the Waveney and Dave to the south; we have long-form journalism in the form of the originally-sourced articles and short-form journalism in the form of our Twitter-led panels… we’re part of the conversation. We don’t deliver tablets of stone from on high; we – as journalists – have come down off the mountain top.

And, above all, we’re getting ever closer to the point of breaking even financially; by taking the platform ‘in house’ and onto a WordPress theme, we’ve stripped out £300 worth of monthly hosting and third party web house costs.

We’re masters of our own destiny now. And still picking up local web advertising on tenancy-based deals; helped, in no small part, by the fact that we deliver transparency; numbers… via our bespoke banner ad management system www.twadservices.co.uk and, ideally, www.addiply.com

Which reminds me, I need to practice what I preach and get selling…

We’ve not done away games for months now; on the slimline returns a non-networked web proposition offers, I can’t justify the travel costs to and from. In a networked offering of, say, 24 Championship clubs, I could simply swap content with our ‘man’ at the home game.

For now, however, I’ll do a better job of transcribing the BBC local radio audio than their content factory in The MailBox does of a Sunday…

Is it perfect? No. But can it work with scale? Yes. Then you syndicate your content into a BBC that claims to be on the retreat web-wise; then you drop national advertisers down the same networked platform that you find your local advertisers on.

And then repeat. For www.mybaseballwriter.com/NYJets or www.mybasketballwriter.com/Mavericks

Just as Mark Cuban suggests….

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2009/01/12/dear-mr-cuban-i-was-interested-to-read-your-thoughts-on-establishing-a-beatwriters-co-operative-in-the-united-states/

Ain’t rocket science. Whatever the bureaucrats claim.

By Rick Waghorn | Posted in General, Journalism, MFW | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Selling advertising has always been a people thing; its what ad reps did; they gave ’selling’ a human touch. And nothing’s changed…

4 March 2010 – 1:28 pm

We have, for quite some time now, been treading a similar path to MrG.

Only difference being that whilst Google’s road forward is a ten-lane LA highway; ours is far more of an ill-trod, mountain path.. with little more than one hardy, Himalayan goat to have gone before us.

And we tend to keep our gobs shut; we’re small. As in tiny small. And we know we’re tiny small.

But by chance our paths happened to coincide again last week after – courtesy of Mr Neil Mason – I found myself reading this…

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/next-generation-of-ad-serving-for.html

It is Google’s announcemnet of how they plan to integrate DoubleClick’s display ad proposition into their own, existing Ad programs… in effect, bolting on richer media solutions for publishers to their existing AdSense and Ad Words offerings.

All of which harked back to Google’s $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick in the spring of 2007.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/technology/14DoubleClick.html

Now they have a plan to marry the two together and offer publishers large and small the chance to maximise their ad returns…

DoubleClick for Publishers is designed… “to help online publishers make the most money possible from their content, whether they sell advertising directly through their own sales force, through an ad network such as AdSense, or a combination of both…

It is a tricky task; trying to be all things to all men.

Cos we’re doing the same; bolting on a richer media offering to our existing www.addiply.com proposition… only in our case, our Ian – with a little help from Harry, Toby and co from NeonTribe – has spent his festive break weaving the banner ad management system that always lay behind www.myfootballwriter.com/norwichcity into the DNA of Addiply…

So, in effect, Addiply’s ‘DoubleClick’ is http://www.twadservices.co.uk

It has only ever had one customer; http://www.myfootballwriter.com/norwichcity No-one has offered me three bucks for it, let alone three billion.

But the point remains the same; sign up to a publishers account with Addiply and – on the proviso that you recognise a public beta trial when you see one – you can now offering richer media solutions to your potential advertising clients.

For a fiver a week. Or a tenner a month. Or whatever rate you fancy. You could even set yourself a CPM rate – and sell by impressions.

But as Google themselves point out; that’s not always easy to manage yourself. Who knows when a big story might break… literally in the case of the global surfing site that suddenly finds itself the victim of a surge in traffic but is left with no ads to fill…

Of course, if he’d flogged his display ads off at $100 a month then he’d be covered; and if he was working on the bid model, then as soon as a web-savvy wax manufacturing recognised the surge in traffic, he could have nicked that space for $110 bucks a month… and seen which way the wind had blown a month later.

By placing the ad himself, as opposed to entrusting an ad network to deliver that same result for him…

It is fascinating. Because for me, rightly or wrongly, I still think people want to buy off people; they don’t want to be enslaved to a machine; to be wholly beholden to the magic of an algorithm.

However smart.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I suspect that there are one or two Google executives who wished that a pair of human eyes had seen a certain video clip rather earlier than subsequently transpired…

… had any decent human being spotted said video, then three of Google’s finest wouldn’t have found themselves at the mercy of the Italian judicial system…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/01/google-youtube-charles-arthur

All of brings thoughts of pre-moderation and pre-approval right to the fore…

And, yes, I know you can tweak and twiddle with this, that and whatever within the Google machine; that you can ‘optimise’ your life away getting the ad ‘fit’ right. There is an element of human intervention in both models.

But, I believe, one of the things that both Lee at our much-loved
http://www.peoplesrepublicofsouthdevon.co.uk/and Alastair at http://www.greenerleith.org appreciate the most is the chance to simply approve ads themselves; to grant people space on their site in the knowledge that they fit snugly into that particular community…

And it might be a ‘fit’ that is explained by wholly non-mathematical thinking… ie/eg ‘Yeh, he’s fine… he’s a mate…’

Indeed, travel up and down this land with your ad network wares and more and more you find this trait; of people not only wanting to buy off people, but to sell to people that they – not a machine – approve of…

One conversation involved ruling out any business that lay west of the Tamar; another – more recent – involved the prospect of running a local ad system through one of the most fractured and divided communities in Western Europe.

How a black box would ever make sense of those tribal divisions is beyond me; and I suspect even the mightiest brains on the planet as they huddle round that magical algorithm.

People want the ability to choose; to be empowered, not enslaved. And therein lies a world of difference between Addiply and Googliath.

By Rick Waghorn | Posted in Advertising, General, MFW | Tagged | Comments (1)

Fascinating to watch the rise of ’sociable media’ – of which Totnes Monster and coffee shop Hayley are a proud part…

12 February 2010 – 5:44 pm

It’s been a while; been ‘on the road’ of late… jobs to do, people to see, family to bury…

All of which means that I’ve missed much of the ‘buzz’ that accompanied Google’s latest concoction; stepping onto the social media toes of both FaceBook and Twitter. Or not, as the case may be.

I have to be honest, I’ve not done FaceBook for a while now. I’ve been dragged back to it of late if only because a couple of people do… that’s where they ‘hang out’. Both, interestingly, are over 40.

And post pics. Of holidays. And friends’ weddings.

But FaceBook has cropped up in other conversations too. I met Joniayn of http://www.llandaffnews.com/ fame in Cardiff the other night.

Her post on FaceBook meets Hyper-Local was fascinating; well worth a wider airing… http://www.joniayn.com/?p=138

… this idea that people might park themselves on FaceBook; settle into the landscape and – a bit like a favourite park bench – prove distinctly reluctant to move on.

So, ergo, if the FaceBook Mountain won’t go to the Hyper-Local Muhammed, then you go find them there – even to the extent of advertising your wares to potential ‘fans’ through the same medium; now home to some 400,000,000 potential punters.

‘All’ you do is – chameleon-like – recognise the colours of the FaceBook jungle and blend in… http://www.facebook.com/pages/Llandaff-News/165800343835

Now you’re part of the village ’scene’. You fit in; you’re not imposing your own solution onto your target community… you’re adopting their’s.

This growing sense that FaceBook might prove something of a basic building block of local-niche life – indeed, maybe even prove to be a cornerstone of everything we are all trying to construct – has popped up twice elsewhere on my Addiply travels.

In Devon, for example.

Here’s http://www.peoplesrepublicofsouthdevon.co.uk/ A long-time favourite in these parts…

Now look at the Addiply advertisers… the local taxi firm, the meditation people – http://artofstillness.org/ and the local music promoter, the Totnes Monster.

Whose link through… is his FaceBook page… “>http://www.facebook.com/pages/Totnes-Monster/138744587222

For those not of a Norfolk leaning, Addiply has just launched out of here… http://www.enjoynorwich.com/ Or, rather, atop their Events section… here… http://www.enjoynorwich.com/events/

And one of the ‘events’ in Norwich this week was the launch of a new coffee shop… run by a bright, enterprising young lady called Hayley. Guess she’s 20, 21. I was old enough to be her dad, in short.

Anyway, Tweets out of http://twitter.com/TheWindowCoffee

Doesn’t have a website. But guess what Hayley does have… a FaceBook page; that’s where her community – for now, at least – lives.

I’m not going to link; I’ve no idea if she’ll see me as a ‘fan’. A sad fan, maybe.

But it’s out of that that ‘brand’ Hayley that she can drive her own, new brand of TheWindowCoffee; I expect a goodly percentage of her new customers to arrive off her FaceBook page… not her website.

But, then, does she need a website? A stand-alone place to call her own?

Because if her FaceBook pals – her fans – have long since ‘bought’ into Hayley the person, chances are they’ll be buying her coffee… with or without the need for a website.

Why? Because they already know, recognise and trust the ‘brand’. They’re fans.

And people buy off people. Always have done; always will.

It’s why we all need to be sociable to survive; and those that do survive will – in every likelihood – live their lives off the most ’sociable’ media platform they can find.

And in this age of ’sociable media’, for me it looks like FaceBook is currently king; even if the ‘Buzz’ hopes otherwise.

By Rick Waghorn | Posted in Advertising, General, Misc | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

Making Mr Hunt’s vision of city-based TV stations flesh will take a large dollop of networked thinking: a few random thoughts from GMG’s Oxford gig… mycity.tv and all that.

24 January 2010 – 10:24 pm

I guess as very much the new boy of the party, it’s rather beholden on me to add my thoughts regarding events of last Thursday and GMG’s Oxford Media Convention 2010.

And if the thoughts that follow initially appeared somewhat at odds and unconnected, apologies; I think there’s a link there somewhere.

Just.

Given the still-fledgling state of www.addiply.com, we opted not to book the Presidential Suite at The Randolph this year; instead it was a B&B in Summertown.

Was fine; a bus ride in. And for those who know their north Oxford, it was bang opposite BBC Oxford on Banbury Road. Could see the ‘B’ and the ‘B’, if not the ‘C’, from our bay window breakfast table.

We could also watch the BBC’s breakfast news; the ‘local’ opt-out featured stories from Lymington, Portsmouth and Southampton (x2).

Perhaps Oxford is one of those funny, UK cities that finds itself neither one thing nor the other… too west for BBC London, too east for BBC West, too north for BBC South.

Anyway, it was food for thought as we headed off to hear the BBC’s director of news Helen Boaden speak on the future of ‘local’ news provision on the day that Jeremy Hunt would repeat his implaccable opposition to OfCom’s vision of new independently financed news consortia… and, instead, to lay out his vision for a Britain populated by Birmingham-style city TV stations.

Birmingham, Alabama that is.

The very fact that he was last up on the day – to me, at least – spoke volumes.

It was his message that delegates would walk away with and on the IFNCs, his words would have sent a shudder down the spine of any poor soul in Wales, Scotland or the Tyne-Tees-Borders region feverishly trying to put the finishing touches to their final round proposals together.

“I know that many organisations in this room are involved in bidding for the pilot schemes that this Bill would make permanent,” said Hunt, with Trinity’s Sly Bailey earlier going out of her way to urge regulators and incoming Governments alike to give them a chance. Not to strangle the baby at birth.

The fact that all involved had a whiff of Auntie’s top sliced notes in their nostrils was not lost on Mr Hunt. But the Shadow Minister was not for turning.

“I don’t blame you: faced with the terrifying situation many of you are in, it is understandable you want to follow the money wherever it is, public or private.

“So let me be clear. We do not support these provisions in the Digital Economy Bill. And we do not support the pilot schemes. The contracts are not due to be signed until May.

“Anyone looking to sign one should understand that we’ll do all we can to legally unpick them if David Cameron enters Number 10. And if they haven’t been signed, we won’t be doing so.

“This is because we want to see the emergence of a radically different, improved and forward-looking local media sector…

What then followed was a kind of networked, individual city-based vision for local news… if memory serves, ‘Sheffield TV’ was the example he reached for.

“We will seek to lower the costs for new entrants to local TV even further by creating space for a new national network to provide prime time viewing for local TV affiliates.

“This means that local TV operators will only have to fund a few hours of local news daily, not expensive 24 hour news.

“It will also mean – critically – that as in America advertising on local TV franchises can be sold nationally as well as locally.

Subsequent commentators have, quite correctly, pointed out the perils and pitfalls of those tasked to manage a LeedsTV and a BradfordTV as The Guardian reported the story subsequently…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/21/hunt-itv-news-replacement-pilots

…but the implication is clear. Wittingly or not, Hunt is demanding an elegant network of RightMove type-freedoms, not a new collection of extended silos; a network in which advertising can “critically… be sold nationally as well as locally.”

Which, for me, is interesting.

Because – I presume – what he’s looking for is, say, www.mycity.tv to pop out of the woodwork this summer.

www.mycity.tv/leeds

www.mycity.tv/sheffield

www.mycity.tv/oxford

I looked. It’s gone. But that I presume would be the theory.

A way, in short, for GMG’s own, much-maligned Channel M to reap the greater fruits on offer from a networked existence; not the ever-shrinking silo that is the Manchester Evening News trying to do TV.

Because part of that, back-of-fag-packet theory would involve finding an ad network that could serve richer media advertising sourced at both a national and a local level.

That, of course, we can do… the next few weeks of beta testing, permitting.

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2010/01/08/can-we-join-the-dots-in-digital-britain-mine-a-small-pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-local-rainbow-well-maybe-look-above-you/

But, as I say, this is all fag packet and beer mat stuff. Theory. Mere theory

Where, however, in practice that leaves all those good folk currently busting their corporate b*lls to get their final IFNCs proposals into shape is anyone’s guess; Stuart Purvis of OfCom is also likely to find his wings being brutally clipped should Cameron and Co head for No10 in little more than four months time.

Either way, it’s the Hunt vision that the Tories will be looking to make flesh this autumn. And the first one to a networked domain name might even be the winner…

By Rick Waghorn | Posted in Advertising, General | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

As has been said before, events in the North-East make for compelling viewing this spring. Is the JP pay-wall about to succumb to the bigger picture in those wild and disputed border lands?

13 January 2010 – 7:57 pm

It is not exactly rocket science to figure that we might have an interest in all things North-East this spring.

As has been muttered before in these parts, there is much to keep an eye on in and around the valleys of Tyne, Tees and Wear.

The arrival of the impressive-looking http://www.hohound.co.uk/ over the forthcoming days merely re-inforces the impression that there is much good a-foot in them there parts… much that is worthy of comment and inspection.

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2009/11/26/if-anyone-wants-to-know-where-the-future-of-the-uks-new-media-landscape-will-be-forged-and-decided-itll-be-in-the-north-east-of-england-starting-on-monday/

… at which point Johnston Press were about to build a paywall around the Northumberland Gazette and test to see just how many folk thereabouts would be prepared ‘to bow to the masters and pay rent to the lords’, to misquote Billy Bragg, The Diggers and Co…

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2009/11/30/as-i-look-at-the-new-pay-wall-that-johnston-have-erected-around-the-northumberland-gazette-you-do-begin-to-wonder/

That Tyne-Tees/Borders region continues to command my attention as many of said masters and lords line up to vie for the OfCom shilling in the shape of the forthcoming ‘independently financed news consortia’ (IFNCs) for which there is currently something of an X-Factor challenge afoot – with everyone from ex-Birmingham Post editor Marc Reeves to Will Perrin of TalkAboutLocal sitting in for Simon, Piers and Sharon.

Today, the judges delivered their verdict and whittled down the runners and riders to just three for that disputed border region…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/13/trinity-mirror-regional-news-pilot

In one corner is TrinityMirror, PA and TV production company Ten Alps; in another UTV – the ITV franchise-holder for Northern Ireland – and finally Melvyn Bragg, ITN, Johnston Press, Newsquest, Metro Radio and ITV Tyne Tees and Borders news staff.

OK, if we now drill that down to a few more, on-the-ground specifics… that, to me, says its the TM-owned Newcastle Journal and Chron plus Middlesborough Evening Gazette in one corner; versus the JP owned Sunderland Echo and NewsQuest’s Northern Echo in the other.

And, of course, the aforementioned Northumberland Gazette. Complete with its new-born pay-wall.

How UTV are planning to put foot-soldiers on the ground from a distant Ulster is another matter… what’s interesting, to me, is where this leaves the Northumberland Gazette pay-wall model.

Because I can’t quite see how they can offer that content for free on our Melvyn’s new-look platform – and yet charge for it on the Gazette site….

Something has to give, doesn’t it?

They can’t give to Melvyn for free with one hand and charge with the other… surely, that wall will have a come a-tumbling down, won’t it?

It is intriguing.

Because what is abundantly clear is that the onus is firmly on all concerned to deliver a sustainable business model that will survive – one strongly suspects – the time when the top-sliced cake runs out and, more imminently, the arrival of an in-coming Tory administration who may be that much more determined to see the nascent IFNCs pay their own way.

Hence Mr Hooper’s final command…

“Let me be clear about what we are looking for,” said Hooper.

“Quality news reporting with a mix of local, regional and national (in the case of Wales and Scotland) audiences firmly in mind; genuine innovation, not just business as usual; strong multiplatform applications working together across the web, local newspapers, local radio and television where appropriate, utilising each different medium’s special characteristics; and finally, a revenue generation model that aspires to longer term sustainability…”

That’s a very interesting use of language.

“A revenue generation model that aspires to longer term sustainability…”

If JP are banking on a paywall sustaining the long-term viability of the Northumberland Gazette, is that an ‘innovative’ solution that will be employed to under-pin the Bragg bid?

Or will the Gazette’s pay-wall be quietly dropped, in the belief that between all the various parties concerned they can discover enough platform-agnostic ad bucks to deliver the kind of long-term sustainability that Mr Hooper is demanding?

We shall all know the answer come March by when – ideally – me, @Addiply, @SunderlandUK and @JoshHalliday will have joined a few dots of our own deep in the heart of that disputed border region.

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2010/01/08/can-we-join-the-dots-in-digital-britain-mine-a-small-pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-local-rainbow-well-maybe-look-above-you/

Fascinating times, me thinks.

By Rick Waghorn | Posted in Advertising, General, Journalism | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

Can we join the dots in Digital Britain; mine a small pot of gold at the end of the local rainbow? Well, maybe. Look above you…

8 January 2010 – 4:08 pm

Keen observers of this particular blog – and we use the plural cautiously – may have noted a subtle change of late.

We now boast a banner ad. Gone are the five Addiply text boxes that used to adorn the top of this page; never one to practice what he preaches, I’d been a bit tardy on the sales front…

Now, however, we have a nice, new shiny banner sitting in their stead; one that promotes next week’s Journalism.co.uk gig at City; ie a ‘message’ that – in theory – should be perfectly targetted for OutWithABang’s decidedly niche audience.

And it is gratis to John, Laura, Judith and Co. I’m not yet making a penny from the richer media advertising that now adorns OutWithABang.

For now, I just needed a sample banner with which to prove a small point; their pre-supplied artwork was, therefore, gratefully received.

The point being…? Well, that Addiply is now getting a bit Flash; it can now offer publishers big and small alike the chance to run banners, buttons, skys, MPUs, etc… through its DIY, self-serve system.

Still offering the 90% revenue return, the transparency, the accountability, the accuracy, etc, etc…. all that text ad jazz; just now with added richer media alternatives.

We’re not quite there, yet.

The snow has managed to keep head developer and website engineers – Ian and Toby, respectively – apart; a few more final tweaks and twiddles await next week before a select few are offered the chance to break our first beta trial of the new, enhanced Addiply service.

But we’re not that far away. It is, if nothing else, out of the box; open to be observed.

And, for me, this is a significant step forward.

Because – ideally – it now allows us the opportunity to walk some walks that previously we’d only talked… above all, the opportunity for Addiply to deliver perfectly-targetted central and regional Government messaging into highly appropriate and highly applicable communities.

And in so doing, save COI, local councils, NHS Trusts, etc etc £000s and £000s in wasted ad spend as they pay-and-spray their message across the web – praying as they do, that some of it will hit home…

What none of the above will do, however, is to take the time and the trouble to fill in an individual text ad box for an individual community website.

And that’s fine. We always knew that.

What, however, they should be able to do is to drill a pre-built banner ad campaign down into a network of relevant advertising opportunities… particularly now that they have the mined data to match.

Ashington is the example that I reach for most readily…

http://ashington.journallive.co.uk/

Part of TrinityMirror’s YourPlace proposition out of the Journal, it is a former colliery town. And as such will have a set of health issues unique to such communities… as, presumeably, can now be readily-mined out of the local regional health observatory…

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2009/07/01/how-do-we-join-the-dots-in-a-digital-britain-how-do-we-find-a-little-pot-of-hyper-local-revenue-gold-from-that-data-mine-that-is-the-doctors-surgery/

I haven’t gone a digging, but you can be reasonably sure that a higher proportion than average of 60-plus males in the community of Ashington will display health characteristics consistent with the town’s heavy industrial past.

… and you can be equally sure that be it at regional NHS Trust level or, indeed, Central Government/COI level beyond, their will be a banner, sky, button or MPU that ‘fits’ that community’s health profile.

In a way that would be highly inappropriate for the neighbouring town of Ponteland for whom history has been rather more kind.

So marry the two…

The other example that I would turn to would be Josh Halliday’s http://sr2blog.com

I don’t know Sunderland inside out; I’ve been to the Stadium Of Light on a handful of occasions wearing my http://norwichcity.myfootballwriter.com ‘hat’. I’ve never been out on a night; never walked the streets of SR2.

But, I’m guessing like all inner-city areas it will have its issues.

That both Josh will know about – and that Sunderland City Council will recognise; that in certain wards, refuse is a problem; in others, it might be anti-social behaviour.

Fine.

So let’s say in SR2, it’s anti-social behaviour.

The City Council has a strong policy on anti-social behaviour; it has a ‘Vision for 2025′ to make Sunderland the most ‘liveable city in the UK’.

Therefore, the ‘messages’ contained within this page…

http://www.sunderland.gov.uk/Public/Editable/Themes/Housing/Housing-in-Sunderland/asb-councilrole-homepage.asp

… ought to have a banner ad in it. Here’s the hot-line number to help us crackdown on anti-social behavior, etc…

… and it also ought to be worth £10 a month of any council’s money to deliver that ‘message’ into the precise communities that need it most, in this case the good people on the banks of the Wear that are starting to warm to Josh’s SR2blog.com

£10 a month is never going to drive Josh a full-time living; it might, however, start to make SR2blog.com a ‘not-for-loss’ proposition; one that might – just – be able to sustain itself going forward as communities and councils interact with one another via this much-maligned medium of web advertising.

Is Addiply the answer to everyone’s prayers? No. Can it be one, small part of an answer to one community’s digital needs. Possibly.

Plus, it will always come down to the likes of Josh Halliday and Sunderland City Council agreeing to join the dots between them; Addiply is no more than a connecting tool. It won’t spark any conversation by itself.

What it will do, however, is allow those conversations to be had; for Josh to go to the council with his ever-growing audience of SR2 residents in one hand, a new banner ad spot in the other.

Just as Phil and Ross at http://thelichfieldblog.co.uk/ to go to Lichfield District Council, the local NHS Trust, etc, etc… with more revenue-generating advertising avenues for them to explore…

‘Blood transfusion video ad? Course. And it’s in Lichfield, when…?

And that, for me, is a start.

By Rick Waghorn | Posted in Advertising, General, Journalism | Tagged , , , | Comments (5)

If the world is, indeed, turning upside down then what was once our audience have Mr Jobs to thank for creating ‘a common treasury for all…’

4 January 2010 – 9:42 pm

This was interesting; kind of made me wish I’d made more of an effort to hook up with Paul Carr before Christmas…

http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/04/nsfw-apple-tablet-kindle-and-furbies-oh-my/

As was this; from the ever-illuminating Mark Potts…

http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2010/01/apples-tabula-rasa.html

Both men are clearly singing off the say hymn-sheet… Or rather, tablet. Of slate, apparently.

Why both posts appealed isn’t too hard to fathom; particularly if we return to this idea that there is a revolution afoot the like of which we haven’t seen since 1649 when the Diggers came to town…

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2009/12/30/as-2010-looms-perhaps-we-need-to-party-like-its-1649-not-1499-and-to-recognise-that-maybe-the-world-is-indeed-turning-upside-down/

Because if you return to Christopher Hill’s work and re-read his introduction – written, remember, in 1972 – there is a line therein that perfectly chimes with what Mr S Jobs and Co at Apple have long made their goal…

‘The present book,’ writes Hill. ‘… does not attempt to tell again the story of how the Army of the Long Parliament overcame Charles I and his supporters, executed the King and established a short-lived Republic.

‘Although there was considerable popular support for Parliament in the 1640s, the long-term consequences of the Revolution were all to the advantage of the gentry and the merchants, not of the lower fifty per cent of the population on whom I try to focus attention…’

That’s the line… ‘the lower fifty per cent of the population on whom I try to focus attention…’

Because as much as the Diggers, the Levellers, the Ranters and, I guess, the Ravers, set out with this glorious intention of creating ‘a common treasury for all…’ their dreams were crushed by Cromwell’s iron fist; old orders were restored; people paid rent to the masters, bowed to the lords…

As much as they hoped to turn the world upside down, the ceiling stayed the ceiling; the floor remained the floor.

Some 350 years later, however, and you wonder whether the revolution now upon us isn’t, indeed, our world turning upside down.

Certainly Mr Jobs finds few masters or lords with the technical or legislative wherewithal to thwart his plans to create said ‘common treasury for all’…

Evidence?

For many a varied reason, I found myself shambling through the Grafton Shopping Centre in Cambridge the other day. Walking past the door of the Apple Store.

I even poked my nose in. The rest of my body had to wait; the place was rammed.

It was alive; it had a buzz about it that no other shop in that centre offered; people were enraptured; enthralled; energized.

And the people weren’t the masters or the lords, the merchants or the magistrates… those that restored order in 1649.

They were the other half with whom Hill sought to connect.

They were the 50% of the population that metropolitan, big media London rarely – if ever – acknowledges.

They were the Mirror readers that Matt Kelly saw in his speech to the World Association of Newspapers…

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2009/12/09/the-trick-is-to-understand-local-right-now-some-of-us-get-it-some-of-us-dont-matt-kelly-does-longstreet1980-doesnt/

… the same 50% of the population who, in years gone by, would have been enslaved to whatever story was on the back – or the front – pages of the Cambridge Evening News. Or the Norwich Evening News. Or the Leicester Mercury. The Newcastle Chron…

Ordinary Joes. Decent, hard-working ‘common’ folk. Who ‘get’ what an iPhone can suddenly do for them.

The same as an iPod did. Only with knobs on. Or, rather, apps on.

Looks good; feels great; it’s smart; its savvy. It’s mine.

Suddenly cocktails are made easy. Thanks to our Ian…

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2009/02/26/two-pints-at-the-artichoke-later-and-the-world-suddenly-looks-a-different-place-should-it-be-app-first-browser-later/

In fact, everything is made easy; there is – after all – an app for just about everything these days.

Apart, you suspect, for the Cambridge Evening News. Or the Norwich Evening News. TrinityMirror, in fairness, have an app to call their own…

But the point is simple; these are the people that are turning our world upside down. Them and Steve Jobs.

And, if Messrs Carr and Potts are to be believed, there’s every chance he could do it again come the summer when the tablet comes to town.

Towns like Cambridge, Leicester, Taunton, Alnwick and Amber….

These are the people that once were our audience; suddenly handed the kind of tools that the Diggers and the Levellers could only dream of; perfectly enabled to create this ‘common treasury for all’ and make Mr Jobs the apple of everyone’s eye.

Because that’s the other interesting point. Look around your family and friends this Christmas and see how many of them have fallen in love with their new iPhone.

How many times have you heard this line: ‘That X or Y was a real technophobe… but he or she loves their iPhone… thinks its great…’?

Therein lies the revolution; within the 50% of the people that big media all too often forgot.

By Rick Waghorn | Posted in General, Journalism | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

As 2010 looms, perhaps we need to party like its 1649… not 1499. And to recognise that, maybe, the world is indeed turning upside down

30 December 2009 – 6:20 pm

‘In 1649
To St George’s Hill
A ragged band they called the Diggers
Come to show the people’s will
They defied the landlords
They defied the law
They were the dispossessed
Reclaiming what was theirs

‘We come in peace’ they said
‘To dig and sow
We come to work the land in common
And to make the waste land grow
This earth divided
We will make whole
So it can be
A common treasury for all

‘The sin of property
We do disdain
No one has any right to buy and sell
The earth for private gain
By theft and murder
They took the land
Now everywhere the walls
Rise up at their command…

‘The World Turned Upside Down’
Billy Bragg
Words by Leon Rosselson.

On January 21 next year I’m heading back to my old stomping ground of Oxford to discuss the future of local news provision in this country.

Me, MyFootballWriter and Addiply will join A Rusbridger (GMG), S Bailey (TrinityMirror), H Boaden (BBC) and S Purvis (OfCom) at the Guardian Media Convention on a morning panel designed to talk ‘local’.

It will be some 25 years since I first made my ‘debut’ in Oxford; in 1985, I was the Modern History scholar at University College, Oxford; in the same year that a certain Nick Denton of Gawker-fame was the PPE scholar.

It’s a light that, by and large, I hide deep within the nearest bushel; it doesn’t impress a 17-year-old footballer much.

But every once in a while, you sift through your memories of those formative years and stumble upon something pertinent to these revolutionary times.

Because, for me, there is a revolution afoot; we just haven’t worked out whether we should be partying like its 1499 – or whether its more like 1649 when The Diggers came to town and, along with The Levellers, they tried to turn the world upside down.

Their fate was chronicled by the historian Christoper Hill in a seminal book duly entitled: ‘The World Turned Upside Down’.

The introduction, written in 1972, makes for fascinating reading in an age when what was once an enslaved audience of newspaper readers, TV viewers and record album listeners now make up their own rules on this new, technological landscape of ours… defying the landlords, defying the (copyright) law… to make a common treasury for all…

Hill writes: ‘Popular revolt was for many centuries an essential feature of the English tradition and the middle decades of the seventeenth century saw the greatest upheaval that has yet occurred in Britain.

‘… This book deals with what, from one point of view, are subsidiary episodes… the attempts of various groups of the common people to impose their own solutions to the problems of their time, in opposition to the wishes of their betters…’

Order, of course, was restored; there was a Restoration before the century was out. Before then, Cromwell’s iron fist levelled The Levellers.

But as this particular decade ends with traditional media in such a state of unprecedented flux and flummox, you can’t help but wonder whether or not the Web and all its various mobile outriders is actually making the Diggers vision flesh – that the world is, indeed, turning upside down just at the very moment that Lord Rupert arrives to build his wall to once more try and enthrall us all.

Because the more I wander up and down this digital land – tools in one hand, blog in the other – the more I remain convinced that the answer is small, not big.

The answer is individual, not corporate; the solution will be participatory, not imposed.

None of us will do as we are told; we will do as we feel; our goal remains building a common treasury for all; to unite a divided-stroke-silo’d world into new, networked co-operatives.

We will go where our own, individual mood takes us; we will not be coralled into spaces of someone else’s making. And be charged for the privilege.

‘We will not bow to masters
Or pay rent to the lords
We are free men… etc, etc…

We will make – and consume – our own ‘news’; the news that really matters to me.

And Twitter – the rising star of 2009 – has only hastened that process; it is a tool by which we can defy our former masters ever more… make us ever less likely to pay rent to the lords…

It makes an individual’s ‘news’ ever more personal; ever more instant; ever more free, radical and levelling…

And what’s the most basic ‘news’ question that this common man asks of himself and his family every day?

‘So, how was your day at school…?’

That’s the news that really matters to me; day in, day out; year in, year out.

Now, chances are the answer will be a grunt; the barest hint of recognition or response. But it’s a start. From there you can build.

From the bottom up.

You can build a platform in which the Chairman of the School Governors can be brought to broadcast account over the latest OfSted – the same OfSted report that can be individually mined out of HM Government’s banks of data and given an individual life and importance of its own.

Because every free man, woman and child has the right to free data, right?

You can build a platform in which news of a school closure can be tweeted out to the parents that matter; you can build a platform on which a school carol concert can be broadcast to the grandparents that care….

It is a model that puts me centre-stage; puts me at the heart of my news; my media, my world… but it is a world in which I share common goals and purposes. We come in peace…

…To dig and sow
We come to work the land in common
And to make the waste land grow
This earth divided
We will make whole
So it can be
A common treasury for all

It is an intriguing prospect; that the revolution now afoot might finally see that dream of 1649 become a reality; that the world could, indeed, be turning upside down…

… that I am now the master of my own media fate; a free man, at last.

“I may peradventure to many seem guilty of that crime which was laid against the Apostle,” wrote one Henry Denne in 1645.

“To turn the world upside down, and to set that in the bottom which others made the top of the building and to set upon the roof which others lay for a foundation.”

By Rick Waghorn | Posted in General, Journalism | Tagged , , | Comments (1)
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