So, I got slightly fed up with my old blog, made a few changes, manage to mess up the backup, and lost a fair bit of the last 12 months.
But then this also provides an excellent chance to start again. How I want it to be.
And let’s face it, I’ve not been prolific in the past 12 months.
So, changes are coming…
I promise.
Journalist Chris Wheal has written an incredibly moving piece about having to unexpectedly shift to the other side of the fence when his young nephew recently died in very upsetting circumstances. The media picked up on the death and Chris found himself on the receiving end of journalism, some good and some bad.
First off, my condolences to Chris and his family. It’s a horrific set of events and one I wouldn’t wish on anybody.
2009 wasn’t a space odyssey. But it was the time when social media got a little bit more serious. Whether it was Philip Schofield, Iran, and Stephen Fry dragging Twitter to the masses, or Facebook and Google seemingly taking over the world, social media was the place to hang out with the cool kids on the internet.
But, as Echo and the Bunnymen once sang, nothing lasts for ever, and social media will undoubtedly change in 2010. Here’s a few stabs in the dark, most likely wrong, as to what I think might happen in the coming 12 months.
No, not Rage Against The Machine. I like the track I’m far too apathetic and quite like The X Factor as well. Whatever. But somebody on Exeweb suggested an alternative campaign to get Half Man Half Biscuit’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit’. Now that’s a campaign I could really get behind.
And because you can never have too much Half Man Half Biscuit, here’s the wonderful Referee’s Alphabet.
Time to dig out my copy of Cammell Laird Social Club, methinks.
Everyone’s favourite microblogging site has continued its evolution this week, as Twitter moved subtly into a mass grassroots campaigning tool. Move over breaking news, you were so Spring 2009, organic protest is where it’s at now.
First up was the Trafigura case, of which so much has been written, it’s somewhat pointless to rehash completely what went on (Adam Tinworth has a nice, concise summary). In a nutshell, the Guardian were gagged on writing about reporting on a Parliamentary question concerning Trafigura and there actions surrounding the dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast.
Deep down, part of me still believes I could have made it as a footballer. Well, if it hadn’t been for discovering beer and generally being lazy. And possibly learning how to tackle and head a ball. Minor inconveniences aside, I could have been a contender.
Anyway, as part of my non-footballing development I stopped playing around the age of 17 when I went to college. Between then and finishing university, I really didn’t play that often, other than the occasional kickabout or turning out as an unfit favour for a mate’s team.
How quickly times change. When I first started doing work experience and then freelancing for assorted journalistic outlets nearly a decade ago, the only thing the newsroom used the web for on any kind of regular basis was Google.
When I took over editorship of our student paper, we had a website but no content. When I left, we had a different website with the building blocks for content. We also had an editorial blog, hosted on a basic Blogger.com template [1]. This was seen as quite novel at the time.
Two excellent, interesting, a very different posts that are worth flagging up.
Firstly, Sarah Evans on Mashable on the ten best social media tools for journalists and PRs. It’s a bit US centric but there’s a couple of the list I use from time to time, and I’d especially love to get more people into working with wikis, as there’s so much potential there.
Even if you’re not planning on using any of them, it’s worth a look just to get an idea of the tools and sites that are available.
It’s always difficult to gauge exactly how widely Twitter has extended outside of the tech and social media crowd (and, to a certain extent, the media). On one hand, I have Twitter on in the background every day at work and find it increasingly useful. On the other hand, I went out to dinner the other night with a couple of friends who I did my journalism training with and neither of them had heard of it.
But just when I learn to the other hand and start to wonder if it generally has a wider application, something like this comes along.
Click.
Hiss.
Fade out.
Click.
Oh bugger, that was longer than 45 minutes.
Creating a mixtape was – and still is – an artform. You had to be quick on the pause and stop buttons and be able to work out if adding that extra Belle and Sebastian track would take you over 45 minutes on side A.