Amy Gahran writes about the LA Times and how it spotted a problem with Los Angeles Police Department geocode data.
“Distorted or erroneous geodata, especially from official sources like police departments, can have ripple effects,” she comments.
Investing time and money in production online is still a valuable exercise says Geoff Motley, broadcaster, presenter and media consultant. He writes on the BroadcastNow blog that ‘presenting well on the web is worth doing properly’.
“People shouldn’t regard production for the web as hobby TV. Properly done, resulting in the right impact and a thumping good impression of one’s business, project or passion, you have to hire the skills and set a realistic budget to make it happen. Having said that it can be very cost effective.”
Tony Hirst, the independent developer who launched some of the first projects using the Guardian’s Open Platform, has again used the Data Store in an innovative way – leading to a new story about MPs’ expenses for the Guardian.
Hirst’s use of Google Maps shows that there are differences of up to £20,000 in neighbouring MPs’ travel expenses.
Hirst describes his work here which he developed after he discovered that the expenses data was being released via Data Store. Guardian technology editor Charles Arthur wrote about Hirst’s initial efforts and said “what we need now is a dataset which shows constituency distances from Westminster, so that we can compare that against travel…”
Hirst clearly couldn’t resist the challenge.
Agreement will allow the agencies to market their video footage in English. Agencies already partner on images.
It’s interesting to note Google’s latest advertising move, as reported by the Guardian, and background summed up here, in links, at this link.
The Guardian reported: “Google is ramping up its efforts to make money from its controversial Google News service by striking deals with eight European news agencies, and launching a contextual ad service to display adverts around their stories.”
“The contextual ads will also run alongside content from existing Google partners AFP, UK Press Association, AP and Canada Press,” it also reported.
It reminded me of a chat I had with senior members of the digital team at the UK’s Press Association (PA) in early February, but never published. Now seems a good time to share that information. Colin Ramsay is head of the PA digital sales team and Chris Condron is the head of digital strategy at the PA.
They told me that selling commercial video with advertising is an increasingly important venture for the agency.
“One of the key areas is that we need to move our position up the chain a bit,” Ramsay said. “Rather than be a news feed supplier, we want to fully understand what our service can do for our customers and how we can link that commercially,” he said.
“One of the things we really want to do is develop and leverage strong relationships with traditional media, and also expand in digital marketplace. There are lots of new and emerging customers for us to have dialogue with,” Ramsay said.
The Press Association can offer content in new ways, on new platforms, he explained, adding that video is ‘a key area’.
“I think we’ve got a lot of opportunities around commercial video,” he said, which could include developing relationships with new advertisers. Blue chip companies are particularly important as potential advertising clients, he said.
More and more video ‘is a key part’ of PA’s provision, which could be integrated with different editorial packages, Ramsay said, adding that there is now less emphasis on text provision.
Different types of video and advertising provision means new as well as existing partnerships, he said.
“We’re in the process of analysing the commercial market,” he said. “For first time we’re looking at the advertising market and where is developing the most revenue.”
“What we want to be able to do is develop zones or microsites which allow our customers to attract new audiences and dervive new revenue streams and which we can share in.”
“It’s going to be a very exciting year for PA, in how it develops and competes – we then become an extra resource for our customers,” Ramsay told me.
Head of digital strategy, Chris Condron, addressed editorial issues: “One of the key things is the scale,” he said. “PA is 140 years old – the reason it was set up in first place is because it made economic sense for each newspaper not to send people to same place,” he explained, as background.
While ‘times are tough,’ he said that one of the ways PA is ‘looking to be even more helpful, or relevant’ is to find strategies the company ‘can use straight away’.
For example, provision of a news channel for Virgin Media is a different kind of service, with different kinds of advertising opportunities. “The core values remain, but it [approach] is a lot more flexible,” Condron said.
It’s not just commercial companies they want to supply video to: “The newspaper companies have showed interest in further video provision, and with the BBC not going into local video, newspapers are delivering their own video,” he said.
That’s an example of where the barriers between broadcasters and newspapers are breaking down, he illustrated.
“They’re [newspapers] really focused on where the users are, and what the users want and it’s our job to help them do that.
“I think it’s fair to say it’s tough times – we’re focused on being as helpful and useful to our core customers as we were in the past,” Condron added.
Bella Hurrell updates on the BBC’s development of a ‘UK fatalities in Afghanistan and Iraq’ data interactive.
Originally a list of names, it then became a sortable table. Hurrell writes:
“This was followed by a dynamic visualisation of the figures in Flash. Last week we added the In Pictures page, which is an aggregation of thumbnail images of all those who have been killed in the conflicts.
“This latest page strengthens the coverage, adding another dimension that makes it far more personal, rather than purely a functional way to view the raw data.”
We can’t embed it, so follow this link for a video looking at ‘Going Digital – the Next Generation of News’ from the Newseum, with some interesting interview extracts and a look at the Rocky Mountain News’ last days and the online future at Christian Science Monitor. Full story at this link…
This was announced yesterday, the findings of joint research between CNN International and Ericsson, as part of the company’s promotion of its ‘Race-for-Growth’ multi-platform advertising campaign.
“CNN has revealed that the international business elite are increasingly accessing the internet while on the move,” the release said.
Among the findings were these statistics:
Embedded for your viewing pleasure: the new ad from the folks at the Radio 4 Today programme, which gives us valuable insight into the presenters’ costume and make-up choices. Self-proclaimed as ‘viral,‘ a definition already disputed in the Twittersphere, it’ll be interesting to see how popular it is and whether their attempt to create a viral ad works. The background to the project at this link.
Managing the kit was one big probleim foor Adam Westbrook when he went to cover the First Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment in Baghdad for his radio station. “But juggling equipment isn’t the only problem for a multimedia shooter, I learned. The big challenge is juggling content,” Westbrook comments. His observations and tips for multimedia journalists in the field.