Jan/100
news:rewired – nudges and conclusions
the view of @drawnalism over #newsrw
I must confess i hate conferences. Well, i’ve been hating them, since i’ve never been to so many of them in such a short period of time, and because i’m not making the most of attending to these things. Conferences are not only places of discussion and learning with some of the best minds in a specific field, but mostly a place to interact with them, network with like minded people, make new friends, get into someone else’s list of professional contacts. Lately i’ve been feeling like a teenager avoiding all the cool kids. I’m starting to think i’m losing people’s skills, or my charm doesn’t work around here. I come from a different culture, and you brits sometimes don’t make it easy. But some do, actually, as i found out after the end of the conference, over a few beers.
I was approached by John Thompson, publisher and owner of Journalism.co.uk, so, the man in charge of the operations. He kindly put up with my ranting about what i thought Journalism.co.uk could do when covering the Journiverse, while i thanked him for my (nowadays undeserved) presence in their list of the best journalism blogs. John and his team do some of the best work i see related to the industry, and i’m constantly recommending their work. Another huge mistake i keep doing is not having a camera available to interview people, my Samsung Omnia has terrible video and sound quality, so i didn’t even tried, but my conversation with John could have been registered and posted here, instead of having to describe it using just words. Not much multimedia of me…
Other people that i managed to talk to IRL (in real life) for the first time we’re Laura Oliver, from journalism.co.uk, but i failed to meet Judith Townend. I got to “e-talk” with them a bit in the last two years, so it’s easy to have the “i kinda know you” feeling. Another great moment was when I intercepted Andy Dickinson, whom i must convince to taste some Portuguese wines, I owe him a bottle anyway. But if you’ve ever been to these events, you know it’s all three minute conversations, then change counterparts. After three beers in a nearly empty stomach i was feeling like a pinball (so unprofessional of me…) but i got to talk to Dave Lee, Adam Westbrook, Josh Halliday, and Phillip John that i already knew from Birmingham. But it was nice to get to talk to these guys in person, they are what i thought of them: smart and to be followed in their online presences, there is a lot to be learned from them.
It was a great day anyway, and the bullet points were the following:
- journalists can’t do everything, they need to find what they need to know;
- journalists need to be entrepreneurial;
-journalism is changing faster than we can be aware of that;
-journalism is still the same thing as it was before, but there is a plethora of new ways to do it, monetize it, distribute it, work on it;
You should check these websites to get a better picture of what happened during the conference: news:rewired, of course, with all the profiles of the speakers and some accounts on the sessions; Andy Dickinson talks about one of the sessions he attended; Adam Tinworth also reports on the sessions he attended.
Now i’m working on my assignments for the MA and looking for a place to work for the Labs phase next semester. This was a useful event for me, nonetheless, and i might profit from it in the near future. At least that’s what i hope. And if you see me at one of these things, please approach me, i might not recognize you, be offline, or just too shy that day.
Here are some images of the conference.
[UPDATE: Check this list of links for a broader coverage on the event]
Jan/100
news:rewired – how to make money
James Fryer, from SoGlos.com
The final session of news:rewired was dedicated to the ugly side of the future of journalism: how to make money, why journalists are not making money, law and copyright, audiences and advertising. This was stuff journos never had to think about, but that they should consider in their everyday practice, so they can make it financially sustainable. But the trick to be successful is the same as before: be one of the best.
The first speaker of the panel was James Fryer, one of the founding editors of SoGlos.com, the hyperlocal online magazine for Gloucestershire. I had already met James and his associate Michelle Byrne when they sat next to me during the morning sessions, and we got to talk about we should be networking more during the breaks. They we’re really nice, and as someone who developed an experimental hyperlocal website, i was interested in what they had to say.
Fryer gave us the top do’s and don’ts for a hyperlocal venture, and i’d like to highlight a few of his ideas. He was one of the people who pointed out the obvious characteristic for any successful endeavor: be great. Without being great you’ll never stand out, and gain trust and respect from your audience and your advertisers. Besides that basic principle, you must know where you stand commercially, what is your market and it’s needs, and who could be your allies. But don’t forget to remain true to your starting idea, keep your editorial integrity. I’d like to see some of the major news outlets following some of these principles…
SoGlos was victim of some plagiarism, and the next speaker talked about just that. Caroline Kean is a lawyer, and she adressed some of the problems that affect online journalism, like copyright and privacy. She debunked the myth that if it’s on the web it’s free, and that companies should be careful about the misuse of costumers data. These are relevant questions that would suffice to organize a conference on it’s own. She was followed by Ben Heald, “CEO of Sift Media, a leading business-to-business publisher specialising in online, interactive professional communities.” What i got from Heald’s speech was that pay walls will fail, and that money will come from niche communities that will pay for specific contents. I remember i liked his presentation, but i don’t have many notes about it. Probably it’s because he was stating something that was obvious for me, but that still hasn’t reached some minds.
Maybe me forgetting about Ben Heald’s presentation was Greg Hadfield‘s fault. The man has an incredible life story, and recent events in his professional course still put him in the game changers group. He delivered this simple yet powerful idea: journalists must act as entrepreneurs. This involves passion and vision, and one activity can’t be separated from the other. He said that when he was a journalist he never thought about advertising, it was “the stuff that made your article shorter”. Now it’s time to be entrepreneurial, since the face of the industry has changed forever. Adam Tinworth sums up some of Hadfield’s ideas here.
I must confess i was awfully tired by then, and a bit frustrated because i was looking around and recognizing some people from my twitter timeline and hadn’t networked with them live. Besides, wifi didn’t work for me and i had to sit offline the whole day, which put me in a state of deprivation close to a certified addict. But after this we had the End of Conference Drinks! More about that in the next post.
Jan/100
news:rewired – the afternoon sessions
This is the third post about the news:rewired conference. You can read the first and the second posts too.
In the afternoon i was signed in for the Data Mashing session. I kinda expected it to be a bit technical, and i wasn’t wrong. You can’t learn how to create data visualizations and mashups in one hour, but you can get the logic and purpose of some applications to decide in the future if you’re going for this or that type of graph, or just to know that you can do this or that type of correlation between data sets. Data mashing is still a playground for those with a coder’s state of mind, and a nightmare for most of us mere wordsmiths.
So when Tony Hirst started his presentation the room was a bit caught off guard with the complexity of his work. Hirst started to explain that data tells stories, by using data visualizations reporters can look for anomalies, and find if that odd data means a story waiting to be told. He showed us some of the tools he uses in his projects with the Guardian’s Open Platform, like ManyEyes and YahooPipes, and how he geocodes that data with GeoCommons. It wasn’t a lecture for the faint of heart when it comes to coding and data geekery, but i can tell you i found it quite useful. Data mashing is one of the most important ways of getting those boring stories with loads of incomprehensible stats and figures into compelling, eye-catching visualizations. And they can also be a great tool in the research phase, when reporters are trying to look for the exception in the rule.
The next speaker showed us just that with his work with MySociety.org. Francis Irving uses data to make the powerful accountable and in the users reach. He proved that presenting the TheyWorkForYou website and the new WhatDoTheyKnow. Both these enterprises use open data to hold local and national goverment representatives responsible for their actions during their mandates. It was the “why” to the “how” that Tony Hirst showed us before.
David Dunkley Gyimah talks about video
Another speaker that i was looking forward to hear was David Dunkley Gyimah. I‘ve been following his blog since i started my own almost three years ago. He got me looking into multimedia, video journalism and online video narrative in a different way. The fact he is a fan of experimentation and he supports the creation of a unique voice for each professional instead following the exhausted television news model makes his views more interesting to follow. It is always more appealing to me hear about video using terms like cinema verité and documentary, and his style is more related to a more cinematic narrative that i feel more interesting to be used online than the 90 second pieces for night news.
He compared online video to blogs, saying it was a disruptive way to present the news, and that the online video journalist could work between the cracks of broadcast journalism. Either way, with all the visual culture that most internet users have, online video is a good place to experiment, and since it needs to be done fast and effectively, we can use the error in our favor. The weapons of choice are becoming more numerous than before, and go from a pro hd camera to a cell phone. It’s always the story and the skills of the videographer that make the final result good or bad. You can see a hectic David doing his presentation in the video below.
Jan/102
news:rewired – the Multimedia Journalism session
Top 10 skills for MMJ's
At the news:rewired event we had to choose to attend one of the three sessions about Multimedia Journalism, Social Media for Journalists, and a Troubleshooting Panel on Online Journalism. I went for the most personally appealing and stayed in the lecture theatre for the Multimedia Journalism session. I was curious to see what ideas and pointers the speakers had for an eager-to-learn-about-multimedia crowd. I think some in the audience we’re quite disappointed, but i believe they had the wrong expectations.
The first to take the stand was Adam Westbrook, one of my favorite media bloggers these days, i don’t know how does he do it, but his posts are usually nothing less than brilliant and he has a few ebooks of his own. When i later asked him about his secret he basically told me it was “by being unemployed and having a lot of free time on his hands.” Not unemployed, sorry, freelancing. It’s one of those things i’ll never get, bright people “freelancing”…
Adam, in a fast talking presentation, went through the disparities between both sides of the pond, how the Americans are investing more in multimedia than the British counterpart. I should add the rest of Europe too. There aren’t many examples of sustained investment in multimedia operations and features in the Old Continent. As an example, Westbrook referred the 1 in 8 million series from New York Times, and the several spin offs it had in other outlets.
Since he didn’t have much time, Adam Westbrook decided to show to the audience how AudioSlides work and why: they’re easy, cheap and fast to create and assemble, and if done properly, they can be more compelling than a video. Of course they don’t work every time, but he presented a slideshow that i had already seen at his blog a few weeks ago, that started out to be a video, but worked better as a slideshow. It’s worth watching.
This lightning presentation was followed by Steven Phillips’ from BBC London 94.9fm, that showed how they’re using AudioBoo along with Twitter with @bbctravelalert. I wish i knew about this before, because i was stuck at Whitechappel station in the Hammersmith&City subway train for over half an hour on my way to news:rewired. It seems it’s quite common… As a matter of fact, Phillips presentation wasn’t so much about multimedia, but how he develops his work in the new multimedia/multiplatform environment, using crowdsourcing, social networking, with free apps. Someone asked why was he narrowcasting, since the numbers weren’t that high. The panel quickly found the right answer: they’re developing a conversation, no expenses added. And that’s what these platforms are supposed to do.
And for last we had Justin Kings, who gave us the great list of skills that multimedia journalists should have that you can see at the beginning of this post. Here’s the full presentation.
It was thought provoking, and i believe it raised awareness in the audience about what being a multimedia journalist is all about these days of fast development and uncertainty.
The debate that followed the presentation was also noteworthy, since it was led by two Financial Times reporters who were right when they said that multimedia packages were left out of these presentations, as also data mashups and visualizations. There is a whole world in multimedia besides video and audio slides, and their comment was valuable in the sense that it made me think how we narrow down the multimedia concept to some media, which may not be exactly considered as multimedia. They showed their own work at the newspaper with this interactive chart.
What was left out of this discussion and presentations was that there is more to multimedia than we traditionally defend. It’s not about putting images in motion, or making radio with pictures, but it’s all about using the right tools to tell stories in a non-linear way, with the users in control of the narrative. That is what makes the online journalism different from television, radio and print. Technology is a tool, not an end in itself. And then we went off for lunch, some of us a bit more passionate about the possibilities that lie ahead.
There are accounts about the other sessions. The Troubleshooting panel on Online Journalism was liveblogged, and so did the Social Media for Journalists session.
Jan/103
news:rewired – the start
Last Thursday i attended the news:rewired event, organized by the great Journalism.co.uk team. I have to say that the source of most of my excitment when i got to the London City University, where the conference was held, was the fact that i’d see in the flesh many of my twitter contacts. But it seems i’m 16 again and i’m not able to engage in a conversation at conference foyers. Being dead tired after a long day, in panic because i’m really late with my assignments for the MA and nearly broke doesn’t help, but i’m always good at finding excuses (you can hire me if you need someone for that). It was a good place to network in a more active way, and i failed. My charm doesn’t seem to work around here. But the presentations were good, the event had a main idea running throughout the day, and the crowd was diverse and knowledgeable about media, with different backgrounds and expertises. And that already made the event a winner.
Looking through my notes, i find some terrific quotes that by themselves define the spirit of the event. “Professor of chaos”, that’s how George Brock, Professor and Head of Journalism at London City University, defined himself. But big events in History are surrounded by chaos, and this one in news industry is no exception. Brock then said we had to be “spaghetti throwers”, which as a foreigner, looks like a great image to me. He then gave way to Kevin Marsh, editor of the BBC College of Journalism, that explained to the audience how the BBC made online the center of their news operation, in the biggest multimedia newsroom in the world. Marsh said the evolution process inside the newsroom was so fast they couldn’t even reflect on what was going on, and he took a great lesson out of that experience: “If you think you know the answer, it’s because you didn’t got the question.”
“Entrepreneurial journalism won’t replace big journalism” could sound like a statement against the main current at news:rewired, but it is a great warning for those who are getting the wrong picture about new media. Marsh defends multimedia skills will not suplant journalistic skills but “they suplement the core skills of journalism”. He said there’s no room for a PanMedia journalist, but for journalists with specific skills. We can think this is a step back in the new media philosophy, but i’m also joining this bandwagon. It’s good to know a bit about everything, but we need to be specialists in something. Kevin Marsh also left some good advices for journo students and pros:
-keep learning;
-think like a journalist when you look at the skill set that you need;
-think about what you do well and how the new skills fit with the old ones;
-if the skill is not working for you, drop it.When you stop innovating you should move on.
And he reinforced these ideas by saying “Skills are means to an end”, we spend too much time talking about applications and not about what they can do. But if God is in the details, he gave a final warning: “Don’t lose sight of the big picture.”
The man is right. Check his keynote in full below.
In the next posts i’ll talk about how the rest of the day went. There is a post about Marsh’s ideas here, but you might want to check Nigel Barlow’s insights too.
Jan/100
news:rewired – follow here | sigam aqui
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Today i’ll be at the news:rewired event, at London City University. You can follow everything here. More on this later.
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Hoje vou estar no news:rewired, na London City University. Podem seguir tudo por aqui. Mais informações em breve.
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Nov/090
news:rewired – city university, london, 14/01/2010
Are you going? You should.
This is one of those things i’ll try not to miss: Journalism.co.uk, the online journalism website par excellence, is turning 10, and they’re organizing a conference dedicated to what-you-know-what. So if you’re into the present and future of journalism, sign up, it’s on the 14th of January and it costs the fair amount of 80£. By the way, have i ever told you that my blog is on their list?
In Journalism.co.uk’s own words:
news:rewired, a one-day meet-up organised by Journalism.co.uk at City University, London will bring together leading multimedia journalists and digital news editors and look beyond our industry to data experts and e-commerce specialists, generating original ideas for ways of working and practical advice you can use straightaway.
news:rewired wants to help you do better journalism – whether that’s learning the basics of videojournalism or discovering new social media tools through which to tell your stories - by providing speakers who are already changing how it’s done.
“It’s always been our goal to educate as well as observe at Journalism.co.uk, and news:rewired represents the culmination of our accumulated efforts in that direction over the past decade,” added Journalism.co.uk founder John Thompson.
Multimedia, mash-ups and making money – this is the news business rewired.
Full details are at www.newsrewired.com, but here’s the basic outline:
Who’s it for?
- Journalists: staffers, freelancers, editors, newsroom executives, trainees and students from all sectors, as well as those looking to get back into the industry
- Journalism trainers, tutors and teachers
- Anyone in media, journalism and communications with an interest in where our industry is headed
When and where?
- news:rewired will take place on 14 January 2010 at London’s City University from 10am – 5:15pm.
What’s going on?
- Session 1: Multimedia
Choose from three groups: videojournalism; social media for journalists; a troubleshooting panel for all your online journalism needs.
- Session 2: Collaboration
Take your pick from three discussions on forming partnerships, covering: user-generated content, data and local media.
- Session 3: Making Money
No event for modern-day journalists would be worth attending without a discussion on making money. But there’ll be no wishful ‘blue sky thinking’ here, just a look at what’s worked, what hasn’t and where the opportunities are for online journalists.
How much will it cost?
news:rewired tickets are £80+ VAT and can be bought at this link.
For more information contact:
Laura Oliver (laura [at] journalism.co.uk) or Judith Townend (judith [at] journalism.co.uk) on +44 (0)1273 384290
And follow @newsrewired on Twitter
Oct/090
Week Digest | Resumo da semana
Multimedia at work
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This week has been really busy, as you might have noticed from the absence of posts. There’s lots of stuff going on around here, and i’ll try to sum up what happened in these last few days. Last week i went to Hello Digital, a huge festival dedicated to digital media, social media, what media is turning into. I can’t give you an extensive account about what happened that day, but i must say that for me it was rewarding and reassuring: i’m in the right direction and in the right place. Birmingham is the most exciting place to be in Britain (and probably in Europe) for digital media development. You can find more information about what went on at Hello Digital here (look for the older entries). |
Esta semana foi mesmo agitada, como podem ter percebido da ausência de post. Anda muita coisa a acontecer por aqui, e vou tentar resumir o que aconteceu nos últimos dias. A semana passada fui ao Hello Digital, um enorme festival dedicado aos media digitais, sociais, ao que os media se estão a tornar. Eu nºao vos posso fazer um relato extenso sobre o que aconteceu nesse dia, mas posso dizer que para mim foi compensador e deu-me confiança: estou no caminho e no local certos. Birmingham é o sítio mais excitante para se estar no Reino Unido (e provavelmente na Europa) para o desenvolvimento de media digitais. Podem encontrar mais informação sobre o que se passou no Hello Digital a aqui (vejam as entradas mais antigas.
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Thompson-Reuters debate
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The very next day after Hello Digital i went down to London to attend a debate about ethics, “What Price the News?” at Thompson Reuters . What struck me the most was the lively pace of the debate, the relaxed and witty attitude of the participants, the lack of reverence towards the panel (we had a Pulitzer prize there) like i get to see a lot in Portugal, but always being respectful (i’m more used to see one without the other). Anyway, though the questions raised were interesting, i felt uncomfortable realizing that most people are still outdated and take conservative stands about digital media and social networks. The idea of information bypassing the traditional channels scares them to death. Welcome to the brave networked world. Ethics in journalism, like i said so many times, is not something you can teach. It’s a personal feature, it comes with the package. Of course it implies a set of procedures we must always keep in my when in doubt. But common sense and respect for the ones involved and the audience (and self-respect too) are always a good start. You can read about the debate here, and here, and follow the chain of events through the magnificent liveblogging effort by my colleague Caroline Beavon (she’s really good at it). Afterwards i stayed in London for the weekend, done some sightseeing and hung out with my friends that live there. No work at all for 4 days. |
Logo no dia a seguir ao Hello digital fui até Londres assistir a um debate sobre ética, “What Price the News?” na Thompson Reuters. O que mais me impressionou foi o ritmo vivo do debate, a atitude descontraída e espirituosa dos participantes, a inexistência de reverência pelo painel (tínhamos um Pulitzer entre nós) como costumo ver em Portugal, mas sempre com respeito (estou habituado a ver um sem o outro). De qualquer forma, apesar das questões levantadas serem interessantes, senti-me desconfortável por perceber que a maioria das pessoas estão desactualizadas e assumem posições conservadoras em relação aos media digitais e redes sociais. A ideia de que a informação passa fora dos canais tradicionais assusta-os de morte. Bem vindos ao admirável mundo em rede. A ética no jornalismo, como já disse tantas vezes, não é algo que se ensine. É uma característica pessoal, vem no conjunto. É claro que implica uma série de procedimentos que devemos ter sempre presentes em caso de dúvida. Mas senso comum, e respeito pelos envolvidos e pelo público (e respeito próprio) são sempre um bom ponto de partida. Podem ler sobre o debate aqui, e aqui, e seguir o encademaneto de ideias através do trabalho fantástico de liveblogging da minha colega Caroline Beavon (ela é mesmo boa nisto). Depois fiquei por Londres para o fim de semana, para ver as vistas e estar com os meus amigos que vivem lá. Nada de trabalho durante 4 dias.
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News frozen in time | As notícias congeladas no tempo
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Another event that marked this week was the end of Semanário, a portuguese weekly newspaper. The staff were mainly freelancers, and the newspapers had a circulation of 20.000 copies, but only two thousand were sold. The problem for me is that there was no investment in the newspaper, as you can see from their website and their print version. And it had almost no relevance in the portuguese news panorama. What worries me is not the end of a newspaper that failed to keep up with times, but the outcome: good journalists without a job. More news about it here. I wish the best to all of those who enrolled the crowd of unemployed journalists. |
Outro acontecimento que marcou esta semana foi o encerramento do jornal Semanário. Composto principalmente por freelancers e jornalistas a recibos verdes, o jornal tinha uma circulação de 20 mil cópias mas das quais vendia apenas duas mil. O problema para mim é que não houve investimento no jornal, como podem ver pelo website e pela versão impressa. E não tinha grande relevãncia no panorama jornalístico nacional. O que me preocupa não é o encerramento de um jornal que não conseguiu acompanhar os tempos, mas o resultado disso: bons jornalistas sem emprego. Mais informação aqui. Desejo a melhor das sortes a todos aqueles que se juntaram ao rol de jornalistas desempregados.
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Oct/090
4iP : “We are not charity”
Tom Loosemore shows the map to 4iP strategy
Channel 4 has been investing in digital platforms and products, not to transfer television onto the web, but to create new products that engage audiences online, through the 4iP program. Their new media Commissioners came to Birmingham to share what they’re doing and what are their plans for the future. And that involves other people’s ideas. Your ideas.
Mobile apps, gaming, native online content, social media, networks, collaboration: these are not the thoughts you’d expect from a TV channel. But Channel 4 has a different approach. They created the 4 Innovation for Public (4iP) fund, to deliver publicly valuable content and services on digital media platforms with significant impact and in sustainable ways. And sustainability is a huge issue for them. “We are not charity”, said Tom Loosemore, head of 4iP, but they are willing to invest part of their 20 million pounds budget to “support bigger, bolder projects”.
They are already supporting a few in the West Midlands, like Help me Investigate, Yoosk, Talk About Local, the place they described as the “hottest spot to be in the country” regarding new media. If you want to know how to propose a project to 4iP, just keep on reading. Many of the minds that got together this Tuesday at the Austin Court, left feverishly plotting their proposals.
Embarrassing Bodies and the Battlefront
First let’s take a look at they’ve been doing so far. Louise Brown, head of Cross Platform commissioning, explained that digital platforms “allow to increase the depth of impact with audiences”. Their TV show Embarrassing Bodies was divided into clips for screening on the computer or cell phones, to make all of the medical information more useful and accessible. Interaction is also a big deal for them. In their online drama “Hollyoaks”, the mainly teen audience had a chance to interact with the actors. Brown said that younger audiences “tend to expect and demand more”, and creating engagement is a huge part of that relationship.
“We want to focus on what the audience needs” and their needs for 2010 revolve around health, comedy and news, the three top goals they want to tackle next year. “We’re looking to hear from designers, production companies”, anyone who can provide “more innovation”, and that is what Louise Brown expects to be funded by the 3 million budget of the Cross Platform.
Innovation is also a keyword for Matt Locke, who’s in charge of the Education projects at 4iP. He defined his work in three simple steps: get attention, keep attention and add value. “We try to reach teens in their streams” and they navigate on social networks like Facebook, Twitter or even YouTube. These networks filter the content for them, so Matt Locke defended that they have to “go out where the teens are”, to get their attention. After that, they must build a relationship, allowing them to express their views in comments, polls or other forms of participation. It’s that kind of engagement that adds value to the contents produced by them. He gave the example of “Battlefront”, a show about 20 young campaigners defending their cause with the help of online users. “Some of the campaigners had phenomenal responses”, and it showed that a lot has to be learned about how to combine video with online networks.
Networks are important, but gaming is one of the top priorities at the Education department. They even have a game about networking called “Smokescreen”, but their biggest success is the “1066” flash game (related to the historical drama series with the same name) that averaged 250.000 plays per week, with users playing it for more than 20 minutes, in a total of 7 million players, most of them outside UK. According to Locke, they have been two years into this strategy, and the next item in their list is widgets, apps that sit within social networks, and more games. It’s all about the interaction, the relationships and debate.
Make some trouble
Tom Loosemore, head of 4iP, laid down the values of the company for us: “Doing it first; inspire changes in people’s lives; making trouble in public interest”. But if you want to approach them with an idea, your product must be sustainable. And that is not all, it has to be innovative, and since one of their key objectives is “to explore new business models”, all of the advertising supported projects are promptly sent to the bin. What you must consider is if your idea has “a center of gravity around participation and collaboration?”
He showed us some of the projects that stand for the company’s values: Mapumental, a project about commuting; AudioBoo, that was effectively used during the G20 protests in London, with people reporting from the frontlines using their iPhones; and MyBuilder, something he called as “consumer protection for the 21st century”. Tom Loosemore also enhanced another aspect to take into account: “People’s media habits are fragmenting” and it’s harder to introduce people to great contents they don’t know about. “Discoverability” is the word, which is translated by helping users “bump into stuff they like” integrating Facebook and Twitter into the aggregated content of 4OD. “You can see what your friends are watching and talking about.”
For Tom Loosemore there’s an effective way to get a project running: build them quick and dirty and get them on the internet. If you want to submit your project you must remember that it has to be sustainable. “We are a business”, he emphasizes, but he is also looking forward for people willing to take risks. “It’s not about funding, but stimulating products” and if they can cause a stir, even better. They are looking for projects that fall under value number 3 (make some trouble) holding power to account, but they are also interested on Health and Wellbeing, Comedy and Arts.
But he warns that at the 4iP proposals website “people fail in the very first box: what do users need?”
Do you have the answer?
Oct/090
#HD09 – Hello Digital
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Today will be busy, i’ll be attending Hello Digital, the West Midlands media festival, here in Birmingham. Innovation is the keyword, but also creativity and commercial success. Yesterday i heard the 4iP head manager say the West Midlands are “the hottest spot to be in the country”, when it comes to digital media. I believe he’s right. I expect to write about this later, but you can follow the conference at Millenium Point via livestream. Check the official website or follow the #hd09 tag on Twitter. |
Hoje vai ser um dia em cheio, vou assistir ao Hello Digital, o festival de media das West Midlands aqui em Birmingham. A palavra chave é inovação, mas também criatividade e sucesso comercial. Ontem ouvi o director do 4iP dizer que as West Midlands são “o local mais excitante do país” no que diz respeito aos media digitais. Eu acho que ele tem razão. Espero escrever sobre isto mais tarde, mas podem seguir a conferência no Millenium Point via livestream. Vejam também o site oficial ou seguir a tag #hd09 no Twitter.
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