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July 2010

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• 07.31.10
  Give people the tools and they will build… if Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ is to be made flesh, we have to look to the heavens. To the wifi clouds above our head. Misc | (8)

  I've not really pondered David Cameron's 'Big Society' thing; no particular reason. Just had other things to do; other fish to shallow fry. But on Thursday I found myself sat in County Hall, Norwich, listening to a succession of Norfolk residents bemoan the level of rural connectivity in their beloved county. On one level, it was a tedious two-hours as community rep after community rep stood up in front of a Norfolk County Council working group and laid their digital souls bare... Horror stories abounded; farmers who could not access DEFRA updates; kids who had to queue at libraries for one, precious hour ...
• 07.28.10
  It’s a simple point – one that GMG and their Leeds outpost has just started to prove. It’s always been the little victories… ;) Advertising, Journalism | (13)

  Apologies. We have been blog-lite of late. For many a reason, we've been a bit head down recently; scrabbling about with this presentation and that. Anyway, this event managed to slip by without too much fanfare... http://www.guardian.co.uk/leeds It's the noticeboard bit; down and to the right. There... :) It has two Addiply ads. Now filled. By local, Leeds punters. And as you can see, both are paying a tenner a week for the privilege. Or rather they were; the next advertiser will need to find 15 notes to oust the pair out of their chosen slots. There's a bid model at work. Those two agreed to a tenner ...

  Tagged: GMG, Google
  
• 07.17.10
  The future provision of local news in the UK heads deep, deep into the long grass. Olympics first peeps, your survival later… General, Journalism | (0)

  I did tweet it out at the time. But as the dust settles in another long week in media history - and I find a moment to pause for breath - it is probably worth repeating the 'gag'. Such as it is... Question: What does the long grass look like? Answer: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/15/local-media-ownership-rules The key 'commitments' - and I use the word in its loosest possible sense of the term - are included in these three paragraphs... 'The department said today that it intends to decide by January 2012 whether to use part of the TV licence fee to fund broadband delivery to rural areas. 'By the ...

  Tagged: ITVLocal, Roger Parry
  
• 07.03.10
  Mr Schmidt is bang on the money – again. The trick may well be to let people personally organise the ‘news’ that really matters to them… General, Journalism | (0)

  I guess whenever Google ceo Eric Schmidt speaks in public we are all almost duty-bound to sit up and take notice. To ruminate, cogitate and procrastinate (albeit occasionally...) on the latest pearls of Mountain View wisdom the man has to offer. Because as much as we might have the odd quibble with the complex business model that is AdSense/DoubleClick, Mr Schmidt is still a man worth listening to - particularly when it came to his key-note speech at The Guardian's Activate2010 gig last week. Where next for newspapers - in the same moment of media time as Rupert and Co were slamming up ...

  Tagged: Eric Schmidt, Google
  

recent posts

• Listen very carefully and you can hear the tanks of the big boys moving onto our digital lawn. In the end, the engineers always win…
• If we are, indeed, to let 1,000 Personalised Newspapers bloom perhaps there are better ways of monetising My #Loddon Daily
• This weekend, all eyes are on BBC vs Sky; round two. Maybe more eyes should be on STVLocal. That’s interesting…
• The Children will indeed inherit this digital Earth of ours; ‘TV’ will be a play thing in the palm of their hand…
• If Starbucks are building localised doorways and channels through their coffee shops, can’t we do the same into rural communities?
• OK, as austerity bites ever deeper into our daily lives lets go round this block again: planning application or lollipop lady?
• The genius that is Google is not in doubt; not up for debate or question. But ‘It’s complicated…’ as FaceBook would say.