The BBC is to close its Religion and Ethics messageboards to new comments or threads later this month, with a new blog to be brought in later in the year.
Announcing the changes in a blog post commissioning editor for religion Aaqil Ahmed explained the cost of maintaining the messageboard “has become impossible to justify for a relatively small group of users”. The changes follow confirmation of a 25 per cent budget cut facing BBC Online.
We’ve had to make some tough decisions but I want to assure you that the decision to close our BBC Religion and Ethics messageboards was not taken lightly, as I know users have enjoyed being part of the varied discussions on the messageboards about all kinds of religious and ethical topics. However, the cost of maintaining this messageboard has become impossible to justify for a relatively small group of users. What’s more, as we’ve seen with the meteoric growth of Twitter, Facebook and other social networks – there are now many ways to interact and share information online.
Instead the site will launch a new BBC Religion and Ethics Blog later this year, which will be hosted by an expert editor, based in Salford and part of the BBC’s Religion and Ethics team.
We’ll host contributions from leading figures in politics, religion, news, ethics and the media. The blog will be a new way to take a topic further and find out more, whilst also offering you the chance to participate in a wider religious and ethical discussion.
The release of the Financial Times’ web-based HTML5 app has provided “a big wake up call” to publishers , said Andrew Grill, keynote speaker at the today’s Mobile Media Strategies day.
Earlier this month the FT released an HTML5-based iPad and iPhone app which circumvents the 30 per cent charges levied on app sales by Apple by allowing users to update content through the FT website and thus allowing the newspaper to take the full revenue.
The Economist is “watching closely” and Tom Standage, digital editor of the title, signalled it may follow suit.
“HTML5 will be the answer to all of our problems; even if it’s not yet,” predicted Ilicco Elia, a mobile product expert, who until yesterday worked for Reuters and is yet to announce where he will be working next.
Elia warned that “you can’t do everything in HTML5″ and said it was a sensible option for the FT to launch in HTML5 compared with an unknown title. “It’s okay of you’re the FT because people know the brand in will go in search of it,” he explained.
Many publishers are now looking at the HTML5 hybrid: not a pure app, not a pure browser experience, said John Barnes, managing director digital strategy and development at Incisive Media, which works with B2B publishers. He explained the dilemma between developing apps when working with very different titles.
Barnes gave the example of two titles he works with: Legal Week, where 10.5 per cent of web visits are mobile, most of them accessing the site via a BlackBerry device. He urged the audience to compare this with Photography magazine which is mostly read on the iPad and iPhone.
During a session on how to make money with mobile media, Paul Lynette, head of mobile advertising at EMEA, Microsoft Advertising, showed the potential for in app ads using HTML5.
Thinking of developing an app, an mobile site or a HTML5 hybrid?
Considering the advantages of mobile editions (m.editions) versus apps versus the HTML5 hybrid, Barnes said the advantage of m.editions is they are browser-based and, therefore, provide full integration with a CMS, have the same domain name, integration with analytics and web trends.
And for news sites without an m.edition Elia gave a word of warning to the delegates of the event: “You should not be here if you don’t have an m.edition, you should be in the office coding.”
He warned there is “not a lot of margin in mobile” but it should be central to any online strategy.
Elia warned of the importance of listening to your audience. “You don’t have to be first when it comes to apps,” he said and suggesting it was better to spend more time developing a better app.
Barnes had a different suggestion to those thinking of creating an app: “Write the press release on the launch of an app before you build it. You’ll often realise it’s a crapp (crap app),” he said.
Meporter is a location-based iPhone app for reporting local news by sharing geolocated text, photos and videos.
It is just three weeks old and this week is launching a social media and advertising campaign to gather the critical mass of reporters – or Meporters, as they are known – needed to make the start-up a success.
Meporter was launched at TechCrunch‘s Disrupt 2011, a technology competition in New York, after being chosen as one of the 26 companies, out of 1,000 applicants, to be showcased.
Since then Meporter has set up in several countries, including the UK, China, Australia, Japan, Spain, Italy as well as the US, according to CEO and founder Andy Leff.
The kind of stories being reported are not just breaking news events but restaurant, theatre, festival and art reviews.
A quick check for Meporter reports for London reveal “fat lady gets arrested” in Hackney, “roadworks” in Lewisham and “sun shining in Wanstead”.
It is obvious what is needed now is an increase in the number news stories filed, plus if it is used for news gathering, journalists need to know how to verify reports coming in.
When he spoke to Journalism.co.uk Leff said he had not checked Meporter iPhone app downloads for a few days but said the number was “in the tens of thousands”.
So, how can it be used by journalists? So-called citizen journalists can report news and if enough local reporters sign up in an area, it can be used as a news gathering tool as Leff explained:
We’re actually in discussion with number of local publishers, regional publishers, national publishers and international publishers about incorporating Meporter into the news-gathering programmes.
We’ve got interest from a lot of newspapers here in the US, television broadcast companies and we have been contacted by some media publications in Germany to see how they can integrate Meporter.
What they’re saying is that they don’t have the resources or the manpower to get all the news in their local areas but they’re always having people ringing them on the phone saying “nobody’s covering the high school football game”.
News outlets are losing readers because they can’t cover everything.
That will no doubt resonate with local news organisations in the UK and the idea that they can crowdsource local news, including photos and videos, vet the incoming stories, verify them and publish is likely to be appealing.
But for this to work it will require huge take-up and the addition of an Android app, which, along with a BlackBerry app, is due to be launched soon.
Leff is now focussing on spending money to gain that critical mass.
The initial $300,000 cost of launch he gathered by “scrounging through my wallet, couch cushions, begging family and friends” and is now in further talks with investors.
A social media and advertising campaign called the Million Man Launch will see cash give-aways of $27,000 with thousands of dollars being rewarded when milestones of active users are reached.
Meporters are also being incentivised through a badge system, similar to that used by Foursquare, with users able to trade in badges for prizes gathered through sponsorship deals.
The start-up has a long way to go. According to the geolocated app there are just three Meporters in Brighton and between 20 and 30 in London. However, this is an increase from no Meporters in either city a fortnight ago.
Meporter has the potential to reopen a debate on citizen journalism. But what Meporter offers is not that far removed from how local newspapers have always used village reporters to crowdsource and gather local stories. What has changed is the reporting method and thus the demographic of the reporters.
TheMediaBriefing’s latest conference Mobile Media Strategies kicked off this morning. Our technology correspondent Sarah Marshall is reporting from the event on Journalism.co.uk and via Twitter @journalism_live.
You can also fill up on the day’s events so far with the Storify below which curates content from the morning panels and discussions.
The Press Complaints Commission has published new guidance aimed at members of the public who need help coping with with media attention after the death of a friend or relative.
Newspapers and magazines regularly publish stories about people who have died, particularly if the death has happened in unusual circumstances. There are generally entitled to do so, provided that they abide by the terms of the Editors’ Code of Practice. However, media interest can cause distress to those grieving, and the PCC has now issued practical guidance to ensure the interests of members of the public are properly protected.
The commission says it has consulted widely on the issue, working with outlets including Facebook, the Samaritans, MPs and the police, to ensure the resulting guidance is helpful and relevant. The guidance is also said to reflect the views of newspaper and magazine industry members.
The European Journalism Centre is still collecting responses to its data-driven journalism survey, which will help to inform a future series of training sessions.
The survey, which is being run in collaboration with Mirko Lorenz of Deutsche Welle, features 16 questions asking respondents for their opinion on data journalism, aspects of working with data in their newsrooms and what they are interested in learning more about.
Increasingly, governments, international agencies and organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank, are publishing online collections of freely available public data. Developing the know-how to use the available data more effectively, to understand it, to communicate and generate stories based on it by using free and open tools for data analysis and visualisation, could be a huge opportunity to breathe new life into journalism. The aim of this survey is to gather the opinion of journalists on this emerging field and understand what the training needs are.
You can find the survey here, with one of the participating journalists to be awarded with a 100 Euro Amazon voucher.
Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to sarah.booker at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.
Citizen journalism news agency Citizenside deals with a lot of protest images, and editor-in-chief Philip Trippenbach has posted five tips on how to get good shots using some of the best images sent in by Citizenside members.
They include: Get close, vary your angles, and anticipate the moment.
Publishers are embracing mobile technology to find new ways to enter the ever-expanding market. Speaking at today’s Mobile Media Strategies event in London, Ronan de Renesse, senior analyst at Screen Digest, listed 10 facts on what mobile means for publishers.
1. The smartphone market is only 25 per cent of the mobile market in the UK.
2. The UK is Europe’s leading market for smartphones.
3. There are 18 million smartphones in the UK. By 2015 there will be 42.9 million.
4. In 2015 there will be more Android smartphones in Europe than the total number of smartphones on the continent today.
5. Apple has a 82.5 per cent market share of apps.
6. Android’s Market will take a increased market share
7. Games account for around 50 per cent of apps downloaded from Apple’s App Store.
8. Rich media, which includes content and data revenues, account for just 2 per cent of total revenue. “But it doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant. Rich media is very important for the future,” says de Renesse.
9. The introduction of tablets has affected the price of apps. The average price of a tablet app is almost double the price of a phone app therefore the average spend by the user is greater.
10. The future for publishers could lie in small, in app transactions.
Nick Broomfield, the filmmaker who has profiled such easy-going and likable characters as Eugene Terre’Blanche and Aileen Wuornos, is in the closing stages of a new film about Sarah Palin, according to a report from the Independent today.
Broomfield has reportedly secured interviews with Palin’s parents and former aides.
Broomfield turned to the former Republican vice-presidential candidate after lack of access forced him to abandon a planned Amy Winehouse documentary. The Palin film has “been a struggle because she has been difficult”, Broomfield revealed. “Making her evangelism intelligible and interesting was difficult. All that you’re trying to do is tell a story as simply as possible, putting together a cohesive piece that will entertain.”
At the same time another portrayal of Palin is in the works, likely to be altogether more sympathetic that Broomfield’s. Tea party activist Stephen Bannon is preparing a film called The Undefeated for released, based largely on interviews with Palin supporters.
