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• 06.02.08
  If you want to design our ‘house’ of the future, start with a roaring log fire. That’s what the punters want – to gather around, as a community, and feel that shared warmth General, Journalism | (2)

  We touched on this subject in the aftermath of the JournalismLeadersForum; it was mentioned again when I travelled down to London the other week; me and my pal Steve were talking about it again on Saturday night. What is it? It's the warmth people look for when travelling across the web; a sense of welcome; a feeling of community; the idea that there's a kindred spirit out there at the end of a keyboard; just waiting to make friends and connect. I look back now and that was one of the thoughts behind MFW; that rather than all these disconnected Norwich City ...

  Tagged: MyFootballWriter, MyLocalWriter.com, www.gone2soon.co.uk
  
• 05.27.08
  OK, why don’t we concentrate our minds and give ourselves a gauntlet to pick up. Let’s try ‘Project Stamford’. General, Journalism, MLW | (2)

  I'm not sure why, particularly. Or maybe I do. Anyway, Stamford is starting to intrigue me. It started several weeks ago with news that the local newspaper - the Stamford Herald & Post - was one of eight, free weekly newspapers that Trinity Mirror were reluctantly forced to close... http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=56 having failed to find a buyer for its Midlands division last year. Within that post came a first reference to www.mylocalwriter.com/stamford - to which it would be nice to return. If not actually mentioned by name, the Stamford Herald & Post made it all the way to the House Of Lords the other ...

  Tagged: Competition Commission, Johnston Press, MyLocalWriter.com, Project Stamford, Stamford Herald & Post, Stamford Mercury, Trinity Mirror
  
• 05.12.08
  Obviously for our Lins friends and family rates would apply, but here’s our first business card in a chip shop… Advertising, General, MLW | (1)

  As the more observant among you will now have noticed, we now have our first advertiser... And, by complete coincidence, its a Pilates instructor from the back end of Norfolk. What's the odds on that? OK, it's my sister-in-law. Happy to cough a tenner in the family cause; and to start to give Ian's new unstitched baby its first beta trial. I did explain that her chances of driving new business might be slim on this particular website; it's not exactly her target audience - being neither Fakenham (local) nor fitness/health (niche). But that wasn't the point of OWAB advertising a Norfolk Pilates service; ...

  Tagged: MyLocalWriter.com, Norfolk, Pilates, Virginia
  
• 05.06.08
  Let’s be open and transparent about this – it’s a business pitch. One that’s all about being open and transparent… Advertising, General, MLW | (1)

  The on-going Darren Huckerby saga took another twist today; hence I've been rather tied up with the day job. And just as a matter of interest, football club and player organised an informal Press conference at Carrow Road this afternoon to which not 'everybody' was invited... But anyway, one of the themes that emerged out of last week's Journalism Leaders Forum in Preston - and certainly the dinner conversation that followed - was the growing role of transparency; how openness is coming to define more and more of what we do on the web. It was a fascinating conversation as far as the ...

  Tagged: addiply.com, Darren Huckerby, Fakenham, Journalism Leaders Forum, MyLocalWriter.com, Pilates
  
• 04.28.08
  A first and proper introduction to addiply.com. A DIY classified ads dept for your hyper-local publisher and advertiser alike… Advertising, General, MFW, MLW | (4)

  Apologies for dropping off the radar; had some big and important farewells to do. Anyway, addiply.com. Given our numbers - and our clientele - this is probably not the best place to go fishing for advertising. As we like to be pretty open about these things, with an average daily readership of c60 people and the page impressions to match, it might be a while before we start to rack up our first 50p... But switching over to www.rickwaghorn.co.uk and slapping a big text ads box across the top was never designed to make money; it was always designed as a way for ...

  Tagged: addiply.com, hyper local, MyFootballWriter.com, MyLocalWriter.com, Post Office
  
• 04.24.08
  You either go one of two ways – global or hyper-local. And there’s nothing in-between. Just ask the people of Belper… General, Journalism, MLW | (2)

  There are many a theme that we seem to stumble across and these two pieces return to one of the more familiar - a digital landscape that, to my mind, will be defined by two compelling forces, local-stroke-hyper-local and national-stroke-global. Here's G-Cap Media shifting their radio tents every more into the latter camp... http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/24/gcapmedia.radio ... and from the same Guardian Media page, here's ITN getting in something of a lather about ITV's decision to pull their tanks back off the local news lawns... http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/23/itv.television GCap's decision will hit downtown Loddon; we're part of Radio Broadland, a little local GCap off-shoot; I actually did ...

  Tagged: Addiply, Belper, Deepings, GCap, global, hyper local, ITN, ITV, MyLocalWriter.com, Radio Broadland, Stamford, The Beltway, The Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Trinity Mirror, Washington Post
  
• 04.09.08
  Unedited and unfiltered? Or is that now more a case of sorted, picked and calculated? General, Journalism | (4)

  Apologies, I'm sure both of you have seen this before. And know, for yourselves, how many nails it hits firmly on the head. http://www.scunnered.com/?p=9 My attention was - I will admit - first drawn to the post by the sum the lad was paid for simply the domain name, www.ireport.com . $750,000. For a name. No content, no business model, no launch plan. Just the name. I report. It was fascinating - particularly for someone who ten days earlier had paid £16 plus VAT for www.mylocalwriter.com and had a vague notion of where we might find content, what a theoretical business model might ...

  Tagged: CNN, iReport, Kyle MacRae, MyLocalWriter.com, wild haggis
  
• 04.07.08
  What can we ever hope to teach the kids about journalism? They need to teach us. They ‘get’ it. We don’t. General, Journalism, MLW | (0)

  In many ways, all that we've been wittering on about over the first three weeks of OutWithABang's digital life is this need to start again; to wipe the slate clean; to find ourselves the nearest piece of blank paper and get scribbling. How would we start afresh? Would we really confine ourselves to little pockets of influence and circulation here and here? Would we really thrust our product into the hands of a dozing teenager at 6am every morning and once again at 4pm every afternoon? Would we, above all, still expect everyone to actually pay for what we deliver to ...

  Tagged: education, J-Schools, Journalism, MyLocalWriter.com
  
• 03.30.08
  Time to make our piece with the world; and make Halifax the centre-’piece’ of our survival General, Journalism, MFW, MLW | (7)

  Paul used the term in one of the headlines to his JEECamp look-back the other week. I can't remember if the term 'cottage' ever crossed my lips or not - it's usually a phrase that I'm rather wary of - so, I'll give Paul his due. Because, to my mind, Paul's spot-on. Journalism has every chance of returning to a cottage industry as the next generation of local journalists finally find their feet in this ever-shifting digital landscape. After all, there are three of us here in East Anglia who sit at our kitchen tables and churn out professional copy for a ...

  Tagged: Broxbourne, Google, Halifax Piece Hall, JEECamp, MyFootballWriter.com, MyLocalWriter.com, Paul Bradshaw, Rupert Murdoch, Wikipedia
  
• 03.25.08
  Mr Magic Lantern, Part II. Shedding a little light on the biggest challenge for us all – proving value. Advertising, General, Journalism, MFW, MLW | (0)

  Apologies if we go back to the same 'source' material again. And this time, I'll give the author his due - Mr Anthony Lilley, take a bow. But the more I read it, the more gems you find. With the same on-going proviso - that you read it through the eyes of a wood-stainer. For whether by accident or design, it bangs nail after nail on the head. Or at least gives some great starting points for a discussion. This baby, for example. "Our use of media is shifting to find a new balance between the creation and distribution of content as we have ...

  Tagged: Anthony Lilley, Archant, Bill Keller, Clay Shirky, JEECamp, LA Times, MyLocalWriter.com, Shane Richmond, TrinityMirror
  

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