Tag Archives: digital director

Journalism Daily: Q&A with Growthspur, no Guardian pay walls and tools for news numeracy

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Journalism.co.uk is trialling a new service via the Editors’ Blog: a daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site.

We hope you’ll find it useful as a quick digest of what’s gone on during the day (similar to our e-newsletter) and to check that you haven’t missed a posting.

We’ll be testing it out for a couple of weeks, so you can subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

Let us know what you think – all feedback much appreciated.

News and features:

Ed’s picks of the day:

Tip of the day:

#FollowJourn:

On the Editors’ Blog:

Dazed&Confused: The magazine on interviewing by Twitter

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Last night Dazed&Confused conducted an interview with members of the band The Gossip but with a crucial twist – the mag and both interviewees conversed using Twitter.

Questions sent to @dazedmagazine were retweeted so all followers and both interviewees (using @thegossipband) could see them.

Journalism.co.uk asked D&C’s Alistair Allen, digital director, and Dazed Digital’s Tara O’Shea why and how it was done.

How has D&C used Twitter previously? how has it built up its following?
[AA]We just use it like Dazed has it’s own personality, which it does in a way; we ask questions and get feedback from real people which is really useful.

We also have a ‘Tweet this’ button on our site which is regularly used to spread DazedDigital articles, but generally most of our growth is organic, people discovering the Dazed Twitter through friends.

Will the interview feed into a magazine/web piece?
[AA]The interview will be archived on our site DazedDigital.com, with links to the original people who asked the questions.

Why use Twitter and not a different tool?
[TOS]We choose twitter as we are really keen on it and thought it would be an interesting concept, one that has not been done before. I think we are deciding to call them twinterviews and I’ve already got more ideas for more twinterviews with people, I’m just trying to iron out some of the problems we had.

Were the Gossip chosen for this interview because they are keen on Twitter?
[TOS]The Gossip were chosen as they are on the front cover of our new issue. Nathan from The Gossip is also keen on technology and wanted to get involved with twitter when we mentioned it.

Any problems?
[TOS]The only problem was that sometimes it was a bit confusing matching the questions to the answers, but we are figuring this out.

Journalism.co.uk has tried its own Twinterviews before and threading questions and answers together has been tricky. Any suggestions for a way around this? Or indeed what are your thoughts on interviewing via Twitter?

New appointment: Ayers is made regional web publishing director at Trinity Mirror Regionals

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A week with particularly brutal cuts across UK regional media, but news of a new digital appointment comes from Trinity Mirror this morning:

Richard Ayers has been appointed regional web publishing director for Trinity Mirror Regionals.

“In this key position Richard will work closely with the regional teams across the division to implement digital best practice and develop content and online services to drive usage, audience and online revenues across the regional network,” a release from the group said.

“Richard has a first class background in online publishing and I am delighted to welcome him to the team,” said Chris Bunyan, digital director of Trinity Mirror Regionals.

“The audience for our regional sites has increased by over 30 per cent year-on-year to around 5.5 milllon users a month. Richard’s experience and expertise will strengthen our digital team and will ensure we continue to deliver and drive compelling online user experiences for this growing audience across our regional websites,” Bunyan said, in the release.

Ayers career includes ten years at BBC News online, in ‘a number of senior digital roles;’ he was ‘portal director’ for Tiscali.co.uk, and more recently he was the managing director of a digital production agency, Magic Lantern.

The Trinity Mirror release also announced that Shaun Collins has been appointed as digital recruitment director, a role which sees him focus on ‘driving digital recruitment products and their performance’.

PaidContent: Telegraph looking to develop e-commerce linking project

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Brian Harrison, Telegraph Media Group’s digital director, said yesterday that the group “is in the early stages of developing an e-commerce project to place links to sites like Amazon.co.uk alongside Telegraph.co.uk stories in a bid to replace some of the revenue lost from the declining interest in print ads and the slow-down in online display advertising,” PaidContent reports. Full story…

Update on Emap Inform: it was already free online!

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Further to reports today, that Emap is to make content from its Inform titles (which include Health Service Journal, Retail Week and its Drapers brands) free online, we have been told that is not really news. In fact, all the sites have been made free over the last few months.

“All new content created on Emap Inform sites is now free to air,” Conor Dignam, Emap’s digital director, told Journalism.co.uk.

“Some of our older archives remain behind either subs or registration barriers, but they too will go free overtime. We’re also moving all Emap Inform brands to a new CMS and redesigning all of the websites.

“This is a reflection of what we see as a different relationship with print and online users. There may be some content that remains behind barriers on some of the brands, but for the most part we are looking at our online content being free to air,” Dignam said.

“The editors here have welcomed that move which is putting more content in front of their audiences and bringing more relevant people to their sites.”

Nielsen Online makes host of UK and EMEA appointments

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Stephen Brooks has been appointed as the UK managing director of web analytics firm Nielsen Online. Brooks takes up his new post after working for EMAP, where he was digital director for magazines.

Before EMAP he was publisher of mad.co.uk for seven years, having helped launch the Centaur title in 1999.

Joining Brooks is David Webb as UK client director media research and Matthew Dodd as vice president of research and analytics for EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

Webb was formerly director of digital research worldwide for CNN International, while Dodd leaves the Telegraph Media Group, where he was director of customer insight.

Moving roles within the company, Brad Little has also been named director of industry solutions for the UK team.

New media rank amongst London’s ‘most influential’

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Tomorrow the Evening Standard will release its list of the 1,000 most influential people in London – complete with a brand new section devoted to media.

Roy Greenslade has had a sneak preview of the media movers and shakers, and writes that plenty of new media names make the list.

Political blogger Iain Dale, Annelies van den Belt, managing director of ITV Broadband and former Telegraph Media Group director of new media, and Simon Waldman, digital director at The Guardian, all make the 50-strong media list.

Nikesh Arora, Google’s European vice president, founder of the Carphone Warehouse Charles Dunstone and Mark Zuckerberg (not strictly a Londoner, but hey…) , founder of Facebook, make it into the top five.