You know those funny little fuzzy barcode-like things in the corner of, well, almost everything these days. Especially adverts. The fashionable thing these days, it seems, is to use a QR (Quick response) code as part of your campaign.
If you’ve absolutely no idea what a QR code is, then you’re not alone. According to a recent survey by Simpson Carpenter, just 36% of British consumers know what QR codes are for, while only 11% have actually used them. In addition, 52% didn’t have a device capable of scanning a code.
Nevertheless, there seems to be somewhat of an upsurge in usage of QR codes in Britain. (they’re already very big in Japan) Whether these are just being used as the new fashion or are genuinely useful is another matter.
I admit to being a little baffled and nonplussed by QR codes. The idea that you scan this clever 2D barcode, which takes you to a website, or invites you to send an email, displays text, etc seems to make sense, initially. Content that you wouldn’t be able to immediately access via your device. Fair enough.
The trouble is, the use of QR codes itself often makes little sense. I’ve yet to either be compelled to scan codes on a regular basis and, when I have, the content is a bit pointless or rather annoying.
There are plenty of bad or pointless examples of QR codes that have done the rounds. QR codes on adverts at underground stations that try to take you to an external site seem particularly useless given you can’t get a signal underground.
Equally annoying is the “social media agency” business card I was handed, complete with QR code, that, when scanned, took me on a long and painful journey through a badly designed website to get to the content they were encouraging you to check out.
Shout outs must also go to the feedback survey that didn’t work in Safari on the iPhone and the website that placed a QR code next to a hyperlink to the very same content the QR code took you to.
Chatting to my old friend and colleague, journalist PerriLewis on Twitter, she advocated uses of the codes and suggested a few uses, such as instructions for furniture manuals (which I liked), strategically placed in magazines for extra content, and links to a portfolio on a CV (although Syd Lawrence did point out that chances are the reader of the CV is probably on a computer in the first place).
Another reasonable use of a QR code came from Barry Pilling on the Off The Wall Post podcast. Barry saw a QR code on a door by an art studio, scanned it and got taken to a site featuring the work.
And that seems to me to sum up what a QR code should do. Offer something that you can’t get easily at any given point in time and shouldn’t have to jump through extra hoops to find. They should be quick, easy and functional.
Unfortunately, many aren’t, and take the user on a frustrating journey that could have been done quicker by using a browser, even on a mobile phone.
There’s plenty of examples of doing QR codes for the sake of doing QR codes. And while it’s often hard to find a consistent, practical use for the codes, the really bad ones are hardly going to encourage an already sceptical or unaware public to adopt wholescale.
Sadly, thinking through how to use a QR code doesn’t stop some marketeers coming up with some hideously pointless ideas around a campaign. Take the following abomination from Betfair.
Yes, that is a QR code shaved into a player’s head. No, I have no idea how you’re meant to scan it (it didn’t seem to work when I paused the video and put my scanner up to the screen).
As an aside, I was at the Bromley game featuring the player with a QR code shaved into his head. It was utterly unnoticeable during the game, possibly because the player was in central midfield, somewhat contradicting Betfair’s comment of hoping to get spectators reaching for their smartphones.
Given that plenty of Bromley fans seemed to be unaware they were taking part in a social media first, I’m not entirely sure how successful you could call this (assuming fans actually knew what a QR code was and what they were meant to do with it).
So, to finish, a quick plea. There is nothing wrong with QR codes, per se, but there’s a lot wrong with their application. And spending time and money to shave a QR code into somebody’s head isn’t clever, it isn’t innovative and it isn’t cool. It’s just a waste of time and makes everybody involved look rather stupid.
I’ve never wished to be particularly down on one paper, so apologies to the paper of my hometown, the Express and Echo, but because I probably visit their website more than most, they probably get a lot of criticism. And a couple of days ago they provided another example of why local newspapers are in all sorts of trouble.
On Tuesday, Exeter City met Plymouth Argyle in their first competitive meeting in eight years. Not the most significant fixture in a busy evening of football, but in local sport terms this was as big as it’s likely to get.
Exeter ended up defeating Argyle 2-1 with a dramatic late winner and, like any other exiled Grecian, I spent much of the immediate aftermath reading forums, Tweeting, on Facebook and even on the phone.
I’ve long since given up on expecting any kind of immediate update on the Echo’s website, so didn’t bother checking it after the game, but the next morning I checked. Nothing. The lead football story was how the club’s back-up goalkeeper was hoping to establish himself with a run in the team.
At 11am the next day, a full 13 and a half hours after the game had been played, the match report finally made it to the site. I only found out through an unofficial Exeter City Twitter feed that aggregates City content from all over the web that the report was up.
By that time, the story had moved on massively to the violence in the aftermath of the game, the reaction to the violence from both clubs, and the team looking ahead to the weekend’s game. Anybody with access to the internet could have already read match reports and reaction on the official site, the Western Morning News, the BBC, Facebook conversations and on the unofficial forum, Exeweb. There was no need to read a now out-of-date report at 11am.
The only people who, realistically, would have any cause to buy the paper would be people who didn’t have access to the internet, hadn’t been at the game, hadn’t listened to it on the radio, and hadn’t phoned a friend at the game for a match report. I can’t imagine this number being particularly high.
Sport is a fast-moving commodity that can deliver very good hits if the timing of publication and the SEO is any good. A report over twelve hours after the game had been played – when this was easily a huge sporting story – on a major media outlet fails in just about every sense.
Increasingly, sports fans, with their own community, don’t need their local papers for sport, if the effort put in doesn’t result in a compelling offering. The huge saturation in sports coverage coupled with advances in social media, and the good old-fashioned forums, mean local papers are increasingly becoming irrelevant on an area they should have sown up, given their exclusive access.
At the moment, it feels like the Echo’s site has regressed (and I’d imagine they’ve had budget cuts) and is an afterthought. They will bring in no new readers through the web, as internet savvy news junkies will already have the news from elsewhere. The readership of their print paper is declining. This does not bode well for their future.
(And I don’t say this with any pleasure at all. I would be genuinely sad if the area lost its paper. Even an out of date paper is better than no paper.)
Friday 27th August: The day the station formerly known as Lantern FM was finally killed off. Outside of North Devon it’s doubtful any tears were shed, but it’s just one of a number of Global FM stations that are disappearing off the map.
It’s a subject I’ve returned to often and one I have an avowed interest in. Lantern were one of the first stations to give me freelance shifts. I can’t say my reporting was that great (North Devon’s never been an area I’ve ever been overly familiar with) but the station got by.
One thing always struck me though: just how much pride North Devon took in their station. Mention you worked for Lantern and you were treated like royalty.
Lantern may have been a very small station in comparison to its sister stations and the news was often less than scintillating, but it knew its target audience and its target audience appreciated with plenty of love and respect.
In many ways North Devon was one of the more unusual patches a station could have to deal with. It’s not uncommon for local stations to be based around one major town or city and cover the surrounding rural area, but Lantern was almost completely rural, with several towns but none of them quite big enough to get top billing.
To the Lantern FM audience, Exeter was a world away and Plymouth may as well have been a different planet. Hyperlocal mattered more to North Devonians than the rest of the county, even if the word hyperlocal hadn’t really been coined back then.
Lantern, so we were frequently told, was a profitable station (I guess local advertising was a pretty good way to reach a high dispersed audience). It was well loved. The RAJARs were decent. But it wasn’t exactly a sexy or enticing station.
So, as part of Global Radio’s plans to make local radio more profitable, Lantern was rebranded Heart FM and had more networked programming inserted into it. A small part of Lantern’s soul died, but listeners could still wake up to breakfast DJs Hopps and Chapple and find out where the roadworks were and if any schools were closed, and any of the other day-to-day essentials.
Then, as part of Global’s plans to make local radio more profitable, it was announced that the station formerly known as Lantern would be closing, along with other stations in Plymouth and the South Hams, and one Devon wide superstation would be created, based in Exeter.
Hopps will be departing, as will Chapple. Plenty of other talented local DJs across the Devon Heart network who live in and love their communities are also departing. There’s more networked programming. Listeners in Ilfracombe will probably, rightly, wonder what the hell this new station has to do with their area and when, or if, their northerly coastal town will ever get a mention on air.
Although it’s dangerous to interpret Facebook groups as a general popular groundswell, there’s currently 3,410 members of three separate groups to save Lantern FM. Not bad for a part of the country where internet usage is lower than the average.
There’s a demand for local radio in a place like, for sure. How to get it to pay for itself is another question completely. Former Lantern DJ Ian Starling has set up his own limited reach community station. It will be interesting to see if this continues to grow as disenfranchised listeners turn elsewhere for their local fix.
It’s a situation that’s being repeated across the country as local radio fans protest about Global’s decision to axe several stations. It’s unlikely these protests will have much effect.
As somebody who’s worked for plenty of local radio stations it’s heartbreaking to see what’s being done to once-loved local institutions.
I won’t disagree that local radio occasionally needs a shake up, nor that they may not always be profitable. But the continuing cuts are straight out of the manual of how to lose and alienate local audiences.
In an age of increased listening choice, local, more than ever, is a USP. More networked shows covering a wider area with little relevance to specific communities isn’t the most inspiring recipe for success.
It’s easy to sneer at the music, but this has never been the important bit of local radio. As long as there are familiar and catchy songs then people will listen. What really hooks them in is a good DJ talking about how much fun they had in Bideford a couple of days ago. Or a great ice cream they scoffed at Westward Ho!
A local councillor once told me that the local commercial radio stations were they first places she called when she wanted to highlight a campaign – because we’d talk to the audience in language they understood and could make it feel important to them, locally, she’d always see a huge rise in phone calls the next day from members of the public.
That was several years ago. I doubt if she gets the same response now.
Hopefully something will spring up to replace Lantern FM. And other local radio stations. And other local newspapers, that are also suffering, through a mixture of shifting readership and management incompetency.
Local media is much-maligned. It’s also the lifeblood of a large section of the community. And well loved too. I’m sad to see Lantern’s demise but not, I suspect, half as sad as a good number of people in North Devon.
History be damned. You can’t get through a Prime Ministerial leadership debate without the urge to make the occasional sarcastic comment, and some cheese straws.
Twitter – and social media – can’t provide the latter but it made watching the first of the three leadership debates a lot more entertaining than if I was just sat by myself in front of the TV. And pretty much every big media player devoted airspace and column inches to just that.
Certainly if you want evidence of an electorate engaged and responding to politicians then Twitter and Facebook made tonight’s debate hard to ignore. Want to fact check Cameron’s use of Bulgarian cancer rates? There’s people exchanging info via social networks as soon as he opened his mouth.
In a strange kind of way, responding to the politicians in real time made you feel a lot closer to the action and reaction. Even if the conversation was a bit one-sided (not their fault – the leaders can’t Tweet and debate on TV at once), it felt like the electorate having its say.
Certainly, pretty much every news site worth its salt was pulling in from social media. I could only get ITV’s worm working briefly, but their social offering was very decent, as were other sites.
The downside is you still get some rather unpleasant partisan bloggers making a lot of noise and generally trying to hijack the area. The Lib Dems got a slapping down for trying to game the Guardian’s live poll. Naughty.
Unsurprisingly, since then, each party has claimed the victory. Indeed, when you looked at the party political Tweets it felt like a lot of people shouting among each other rather than many any attempt whatsoever to engage.
In all honesty, political parties are no different from many other big organisations. Many of them like to talk about how engaged they are online but in reality they’re either using it to talk at people rather than with them. Politics has always rather easily fallen into that trap anyway, so it’s no surprise to see the same online.
***
A few other random bits and pieces that I can’t quite be bothered to create a new post for, but here’s as good a place as any to put them.
Several weeks ago I wrote to my MP, via 38 Degrees, about the Digital Economy Bill and my concerns. Impressively, my MP wrote back, via post, almost immediately. Since then, they’ve written to me two more times updating my on their efforts with the bill, their concerns and what they planned to do next.
Cheers. That’s nice to know you’re so concerned on my behalf that you don’t think voting’s necessary.
[In fairness, there may be a good explanation as to why they didn't turn up to vote, but given they're a London-based MP that's pretty poor if there isn't one. I'm trying to find out why but haven't heard yet].
And if you want a really good breakdown of voting on the #debill and why this is yet another reason why politics is broken, Chris Applegate at qwghlm.co.uk is particularly good on this.
And they’re off. We’re now well and truly into electioneering territory as Hobson’s Choice the General Election 2010 rolls well and truly into town. Forget any hope of finding out news that isn’t connected to three middle aged men trying to out-quip each other. It’s everywhere. Including social media. And as a recovering politics geek who spends more time than is healthy on these places, I find it all completely fascinating.
Last election Twitter didn’t exist, all the cool kids were flocking to MySpace and, while the political blogosphere was in fairly healthy shape (and, it has to be said, a lot friendlier), the whole area was seen as a niche concern. These days, political news is being discussed on social media before the speech has even finished, while somebody will already be plotting the inevitable Downfall parody. Yes, for General Election 2010, social media matters – both to the media and the politicians. And that’s both a good and a bad thing.
The bad covers a range of areas, the most obvious being that politicians and the media will try too hard to woo and give credence to what is, in all honesty, a small percentage of the voting population by focusing too heavily on what Twitter users and bloggers are saying. That’s not to say they shouldn’t, but us social media types may not be representative of the areas of society who a change of government will make the biggest differences to.
[Facebook, incidentally, is a completely different proposition and one where there is are genuine possibilities for breaking down barriers between the public and politicians and enhancing democracy like never before.
My feelings on YouTube and politicians, though, generally falls under the same category as the words "let's do a viral."]
There’s also the unsightly and rather depressing sight of grown adults indulging in petty point scoring across these networks, and the media breathlessly reporting this like IT MATTERS. It possibly does, but maybe not to the level it gets elevated to. I’m more interested in working out if the sums add up, or there’s a commitment to, say, democratic reform of Parliament than seeing a schoolboy-like putdown that serves nothing other than mutual backslapping from that team.
Then there’s the gaffes. With social media now firmly entrenched in our lives, it was inevitable that there would be plenty of political gaffes, fails and misunderstandings on how to use it all.
Us social media bods across the media or in brands engaging online have just about got the hang of what works and what doesn’t, by and large, although are always learning. We’re adaptable to the needs of our audience because we’ve been listening and engaging with communities for a while now.
Politicians, with some notable exceptions, haven’t. There’s a reason why companies are prepared to spend thousands on pounds in training their staff on how to use social media. Sure, they can use Facebook and Twitter for personal use, but that’s a very different thing to acting as a representative for your brand in a public space, where anything you do can be attributed to your paymasters. The list of companies who’ve committed brand-damaging social faux pas grows monthly.
Stuart MacLennan could have probably done with some of this training.
And it’s why there will probably continue to be many more social media gaffes as the election campaign carries on. If MacLennan is the only political online casualty over the next month, I’ll be a very surprised man.
Yet these sort of fails also highlight the good side of social media and politics. For a start, it enables us to get an insight into prospective candidates, many of whom you’ll never have heard of, and have at least something to judge their suitability for office on. And if they fall up short, then that helps inform your vote.
This is something that, the few blogging MPs that existed in 2005 aside, simply wasn’t available at the last election and anything that brings politicians closer to the public is a good thing, broadly, in my book.
In many ways, this reminds me somewhat of a post I wrote almost a year ago, on the criticism around Gordon Brown’s YouTube video, and Hazel Blears’ comments that YouTube was no substitute for knocking on doors.
While I was critical of Blears, perhaps I was also a little disingenuous, although probably not in the way she was meaning. Yes, it’s good that politicians are experimenting with social media and using it to campaign with, but it’s not really a substitute for talking to the electorate. Fortunately social media allows just that.
But it’s a two way conversation and those politicians and political parties that get it right may reap the benefits. Lets not forget, 12 votes can be enough to swing a marginal, so engaging online could just be a seat-winner.
That is to say, those who talk with rather to to the electorate will help their case. A politician could just be on Twitter broadcasting his thoughts, on YouTube, blogging away, and encouraging people to become a fan on Facebook, but all this activity, while making the politician appear a bit more switched on, means nothing if said politician doesn’t get engage.
The really good ones will chat back and forth and listen over Twitter, respond to comments on their blog, answer questions on their Facebook page, and be an active member of the YouTube community. Now that becomes a bit more likely to get a precious few extra votes. But more than that, it shows the politician is prepared to listen, engage and respond. A bit like a 21st century version of door knocking.
It’s also one of the reasons why, in my mind, the whole Cash Gordon debacle wasn’t the greatest of ideas. Many of the most effective or notacable online campaigns tap directly into the zeitgeist of that particular moment. Think Trafigura and Jan Moir.
They are a swift, sharp, popular movement that gains traction because people feel strong enough to, at the very least, Tweet about it. The story or campaign then takes on a life of its own from there, and becomes a story in itself.
But trying to tell somebody on a social network what they should be getting angry about is unlikely to go beyond the traditional supporter base unless it touches a nerve, and the Labour / Unite issue wasn’t enough to get worked up about. Had the Conservatives done something quick and cheap around the hiking of cider tax or the Digital Economy Bill, then they might have got more widespread support.
Again, this shows the value of listening and responding – and is possibly why having something cheap and ready to go isn’t necessarily a bad idea. It’s easy enough to spot something developing on Twitter if you know how to listen, and if it ties in with a political party’s ideals, then there’s certainly possibilities, providing it’s not done in a completely top-down manner.
And if the online campaign is very top-down and has an indifferent response, you’re much more likely to see the politically agnostic hijack it for a bit of fun (leaving the page open to a very simple barely-even a hack is just stupid. As is claiming it’s still a victory. Sometimes it’d be nice if political people were prepared to say they made a mistake).
Those MPs who understand the sensitivities of a social media environment and listen and respond are those who may well benefit. My own MP has gone up in my estimation for a very quick response to my email about the Digital Economy Bill, although it’d be nice to see them on Facebook and Twitter. It’s little things like that which can sway where an individuals vote will go.
Social media, as with its relation to most aspects of life, isn’t the be all and end all when it comes to politics, but it is an incredibly useful communication channel to get an insight into the person behind the politician, as well as a chance to ask direct questions, something we so rarely get the chance to do.
Come the end of the election, it’ll be fascinating to see how the three main parties – and the other parties – have harnessed social media and how well they’ve done, on both an individual MP level, and a party level.
There will undoubtedly be more mistakes. But there may be triumphs. And with the possibility of a hung parliament very real, that could make a huge difference. Or at least a difference between me actually knowing who I want to vote for in advance of polling day, as opposed to my usual dilemma of not being impressed with any candidate and having to resist the temptation to draw something rather crude on the ballot paper. Not that I’ve cocked up my vote yet, mind.
DISCLOSURE: I’m not a member of any political party and have no idea who, if anybody, I’ll be voting for come May 6th.
Rather glad that Ben Goldacre chose to write about the “Facebook can give you syphilis” non-story from last week. It seems everybody’s got it in for Facebook at the moment and while there’s a lot you can complain about, some of the ridiculous stories written about the site take bad reporting to a whole new level.
When somebody who struggles with most forms of maths and science at the best of times (ie me) can spot huge flaws in the science and maths and correlations, then chances are the facts behind said story are pretty poor.
It takes a huge leap from a public health official stating that social networking sites are making it easier for people to have casual sex, and thereby increase their chances of catching an STI, to saying that Facebook causes syphillis because Sunderland has one of the highest useages of the site. But linking them together requires such a huge leap of faith and doesn’t take into account the possibility that you have a random cluster.
What annoys me on this, though, isn’t so much the reporting (although bolting on an unrelated report isn’t great), it’s the press release in the first place. These are PR professionals working with public health professionals. You’d have thought one of them might just pick up that the social networking line would be the one that the media would leap on. Or perhaps they intended it to be that way (“Go on doctor, sex it up a bit. Throw in a reference to social networking. That’ll get the buggers biting.”).
Either way, you’d have thought some kind of facts to back up the claim, even if the form of a few notes to the editor, backing up or explaining the statement would have been good. Or, if you can’t, let the professor throw out the idea in interviews, as his own opinion. At least you’re then separating opinion from fact.
As somebody who has, in the past, probably been guilty of spewing out some bad science stories (busy newsroom, no science background, easy press release for a quick bit of copy), it’s not helpful when press releases like this are thrown in our direction. If you decide not to run with the social networking angle, your editor sure as hell will.
I’ve long said that there’s no much thing as adding too much information on science and health press releases, even if you do this as notes and let the release itself be eye-catching.
Going from past experience, the best science or health stories I did was when the press release was clear, explicit and assumed you were a science-idiot (which I was; still am) and laid everything out in as simple a way as possible. And were then very good at explaining and expanding, quickly but clearly, when I rang. Those that didn’t probably led to misunderstandings and undid any work the press release may have done in the first place.
It’s easy to chide journalists for getting science stories badly wrong (and the other stats-bolt on does no favours for this story). But if you’re going to throw garbage into the news system, in the form of a poorly-thought through science-related press release then you’re inevitably going to get garbage.
Until this time last week, my knowledge of Peru probably extended as far as Nolberto Solano and Paddington Bear. And that was about it. Yet this last week has meant I’ve been reading more about the South American country than I’d ever have envisaged. And feel I know enough to blog a couple of questions over the natural disaster.
Before I do, I’m well aware that while my focus on here has been spreading the word about my girlfriend, now safely rescued, there is also a big need for aid and a human cost to this all.
While, thankfully, the death toll has been relatively low, the devastation will be felt for months, even years, to come. More than 23,000 people have been left homeless, while over 37,000 people in the country have been affected by the floods. 80% of homes in the area have been destroyed. More than 16,000 hectares of crops have been damaged, many bridges have been destroyed and some areas of Cusco have no received any aid or help whatsoever.
So, what of both the aid effort and the rescue effort itself? Let’s start with the airlift and then move onto aid.
It was clear on Sunday that there would be a major operation needed to rescue all those trapped in and around Machu Picchu. The railway had been washed away and it would take several weeks to repair. With no way in or out of the village, at the very least, supplies would be needed.
It was also clear that, with just a few helicopters seconded to the area – initially two but rising to 11 – not to mention the devastation to the surrounding area, the effort fell some way short of what was required initially. Even if this was a localised problem, it wouldn’t have hurt to request help from neighbouring countries.
Yet we know from S that, despite reports of airlifts as early as Tuesday, the evacuation didn’t properly start until Thursday. Until then, only one American helicopter made an appearance in Machu Picchu.
The Americans did send helicopters to help evacuate their citizens, as is to be expected. Only after then did Peru manage to get use of their helicopters.
Organising an airlift is probably the easiest thing the Peruvian government had to do. Phone reception was still working, they knew where the majority of the tourists were stranded. Yet nothing was properly communicated until late Wednesday / early Thursday.
So, here’s the first question. Why did it take so long to organise the airlift? And why was no help request from other countries or outside agencies?
And now the aid itself. With so much devastation, with or without tourists, it was clear significant aid was needed. The government insisted it could manage, so made no requests to international aid agencies, the local Red Cross, or other countries.
In essence, the government control every aspect of the rescue and aid effort. If they don’t request any help, none can be given. Yet a week later, other than the tourists and the locals in Machu Picchu, the aid effort appears slow in the wider region of Cusco. This is worrying. The foreign press will now have turned their attention away from Cusco.
The area around Cusco has been designated an emergency zone, not a disaster zone. A disaster zone would have been more likely to bring international aid. An emergency zone meant the government could take care of it themselves? Why? It’s clear that foreign aid would have been useful here.
There are a number of theories you could put here, although it’s worth stressing there’s no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of the Peruvian government. But it does raise questions.
One theory (and apologies, as I’m moving of facts here to speculation) concerns the tourist trade. Peru is currently being sold as a booming economy, albeit one that relies heavily on tourism. It would make life uncomfortable for the authorities if a growing country with a strong economy couldn’t quickly look after its own citizens. They may also be worried about the effect abroad – hence the quick(ish) evacuation of the tourists, and the slowdown when it comes to aid for its own citizens.
The second theory is a little more complicated, and requires a little better understanding of Peruvian politics (and Spanish) than I currently have, but roughly concerns to the politicization of aid efforts.
This news report suggests that an official for the National Programme of Food Aid in Peru (PRONAA) used the agency to promote her own candidacy for upcoming elections.
As a quick end tangent to this, try Googling around the Peru earthquake of 2007, particularly around Pisco. And see how much you can find about progress in rebuilding the area after the quake.
At the end of the day, I’m obviously very grateful that the authorities airlifted S and others out of Machu Picchu, and that when help did finally arrive it was efficient. But it would also be terrible if the government left it just at saving foreign tourists.
There are people in Cusco whose livelihoods and homes have been completely destroyed by these floods. These are also the people who need help the most. They’re counting on their government not to let them down. Let’s hope expectation isn’t where their needs finish.
What you’ve been saying