4 Quick Fire Questions: Lynne Featherstone

In the second of this 4 Quick Fire Questions series, Lynne Featherstone has kindly given some of her time to answer a few questions about the importance of blogging in politics.

I’d like to thank Lynne for taking the time to answer these questions, it is, as ever, very much appreciated.

Rt Hon Lynne Featherstone Member of Parliament for Hornsey and Wood Green

Lynne served on the London Assembly 2000-5, before being elected as the Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green. Lynne has chaired the Transport Committee and also served on the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA).

As well as being number two in the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs team in Parliament and the party’s London spokesperson, she was the Liberal Democrats’ Shadow Cabinet as International Development spokesperson. In December 2007, after Nick Clegg’s election as party leader, she switched to the role of Youth and Equalities Spokesperson in the Shadow Cabinet.

You can follow Lynne on Twitter and of course visit her blog here.

What is the value to you as an MP, of having a blog?

Many! I get things off my chest – so to speak. I cut out the middle man (ie the media) in saying what I want said. I inform my constituents some of what I am doing and thinking. I hear back from them as to what they think of what I am thinking and doing. I get my stories out there – to the wider world and to the media. I can highlight issues that might otherwise not receive what I view as appropriate attention. It affords me a way of thinking through what I do think – particularly on tricky issues. And it is a good discipline in general. And it will be a record of sorts of my years of elected public service and a snapshot of political life for its duration.

In what ways can the political sphere, particularly that of Westminster, engage with bloggers and the online media?

Well – the minute it becomes overly purpose driven is probably the moment it loses its real appeal. So far, it would seem from recent debacle – Westminster (well Labour) see it as a way to spread vicious rumours. It is a fabulous way to spread stuff and engage with different groups interested in particulare issues, but my own view is that this has to be for the purpose of good rather than bad. If it is about the nasty underbelly of politics then it will become as devalued as politics currently is at Westminster

As the importance and relevance of online media becomes more widely discussed in the wider public, how do you think this will affect blogging politicians?

Not committing political suicide is important – as gettting elected and re-elected goes with the territory. But if we become over-conscious or chilled in the issues we tackle or what we say – then the people won’t come! They will die away from boredom.

In what ways can current blogging politicians encourage non-blogging politicians to enter the blogosphere?

To be brave. Not to worry about size of readership or engagement. And not to spend hours pondering over every blog post. No time for that. Just be yourself!

Londonist vs. the Freesheets

Is the Londonist more relevant than London’s freesheets, the London Lite and thelondonpaper to ordinary Londoners?

When you’re commuting home after a hard day at work, you’ll probably have in your hands a copy of the London Lite and the londonpaper, and you’ll probably be scanning their pages to see the day’s London news. These are, in times of current financial stability, the sorts of newspapers who you would imagine would be under threat due to the amount of advertising that lies within their grubby pages.

Bu they both seem to be doing better than ever:the londonpaper has a circulation of 500,949, with the London Lite coming in with 400,547 according to the ABCs. The Londonist in contrast gets 6,000 unique users per day.

But who gets the better deal? Do readers of freesheets get more news about London than those who read the Londonist? And, is it relevant to them?

By the sheer space that the two freesheets can afford to news stories, volume wise, yes. But, are the stories that are reported on really what Londoners want to be reading? Is the celeb gossip an integral part of what makes London London, and do we really want to be looking to pictures of various celebs gratuitously spending their way through the recession, falling out of nightclubs at whatever time in the morning, whilst the rest of us struggle to pay our bills?

It looks like it.

What the freesheets provide us with is nothing more than escapism on an unbelieveably high level. There are funnies, news bites from around the world and yet more celebrity pictures.

To demonstrate this, here’s a quick breakdown of the types of story from the londonpaper and the London Lite from Monday 20th April:

londonpaper
News – 20 *including 5 nibs taken from the nationals
Celebrity gossip – 13 * not including pictures with captions
PR led news – 2 *including surveys and business news
Funnies – 3
PR features – 9 *including product pieces
Features – 2

London Lite
News – 18
Celebrity gossip – 13
PR led news – 14
Funnies – 0
PR Features – 6
News features – 2
Features – 0

I have taken a classical approach tpo categorising these, including business news announcements as PR led as they’ll have been taken directly from a press release. I have omitted the TV, music, art, horoscopes, letters and sports pages from this quick and dirty study.

It should of course be re-iterated this is one day out of 365 and may be an unfair reflection on the breakdown of these newspapers on the whole. What astonishes me is that there are almost as many stories dedicated to celebs as there are real news – is that what we want on the way home from work?

Londonist
News – 3
Celebrity gossip – 1
PR led news – 2
Funnies – 0
PR Features – 0
News features – 0
Features – 4

With the Londonist, the stories are told in a serious yet light hearted and genial manner, and what’s more, these are often topics that the freesheets fail to pick up, for example the Campaign To Save Hitchcock’s Old Cinematic Haunt wasn’t reported by either freesheet.

I see Londonist as being the first port of call if I want toknow what the vibe of the city is, and how people on the street are reacting to events around them, which makes it, to me, invaluable.

What I’m asking then, is if you were to introduce someone who’d never been to London to the city’s culture, would you refer them to a free newspaper, or the Londonist blog, or another? Or do you see the Londonist as being complimentary to the freesheets?

I’d love to know your thoughts.

UK Regional Newspapers on Twitter

Back in January, I wrote a post looking at how regional newspapers can use Twitter, and embrace the new ways of communicating rather than competing against them. How pleased was I then, to see that the Camden New Journal have got a Twitter feed, and used it to break a story, @newjournal.

The CNJ used the twitter feed to live tweet updates from this weekend’s Camden Crawl, London’s premiere ‘rush from a to b and miss the bands you want to see’ annual music street party. And, whilst there could’ve been the use of a hashtag to help keep the character limit down and keep the tweets in one place, it provided a great insight into how the newspaper can use emerging technologies to keep their interest followers abreast of the latest local news.

In London, this should become widespread – many Londonistas will be on the service and, if they’re not already, I’d suspect they soon will be. According to Twitter Grader, London is one of the top cities in the world for Twitter users, and that is set to grow, what with it being the centre of the media world and all, (Disclaimer, being in London this makes me prone to London bias, and i’m sure colleagues in San Fran or Chicago would disagree).

However, how can we expect the vast majority of local papers to do this, considering some don’t have a website yet, and others are scared of the impact on their advertising revenues?

It’s a brave, but ultimately very smart move in the long run – a local paper can build up their twitter presence, develop a relationship with their followers and when an advertising based model for companies pops it’s head round the corner, they can charge advertisers for direct contact with local people through the twitter feed.

“Need a Camden plumber? Tweet Joe Plums” for example. A simple classified ad in the form of a tweet. The only danger to this is that the feed becomes a spam fest with no news and only advertisements, but that would then see the newspaper’s followers fall and a drop in revenue – so why not limit the amount of advertising tweets…

Let me know your thoughts!

Top 10: Blogs about Copyright

Creation and subsequent syndiacation of content, be it sound, film or text, is a big issue in the web 2.0 world. Who owns what they produce on any given platform is subject to particular T&C’s. Here’s a list of blogs to let you know where you stand.

1) Library Law
2) Content Blogger
3) Digitization 101
4) Copyright Q&A
5) Licensing Digital Content
6) Copyright Advisory Network
7) Copyright Laws
8) Beyond The Book
9) Coyle’s Information

What would you suggeest as the all important number ten?

Video of the Week: Beyonce – All The Single Ladies

Video aimed at hitting the Internet for Beyonce’s single All The Single Ladies; very much along the T-Mobile flashmob route:

Weekly Round Up 25.04.09

Mahable reported that AdMob’s Mobile Metrics Report for March 2009 has revealed just how quickly Android has been taken up in the US. The report says “the HTC Dream, the first Android-based phone, generates 2% of their US requests and is now the fourth smartphone overall, behind the iPhone, BlackBerry Curve, and BlackBerry Pearl. It has also managed to capture 6% share of the smartphone OS market in the US.” We’ve stil got a long way to go in the smartphone market until the iPhone has a serious competitor, but at least there are signs of serious challengers to it’s dominance.

Following on from the shocking Guardian footage of Ian Tomlinson’s assault and subsequent death at the G20 protests, it has emerged that one of the police officers present had posted on his Facebook profile “Rob Ward can’t wait to bash some long haired hippys up @ the G20.” WHile this is extremely disturbing and must be investigated, it also demonstrates that you must be careful about what you say in this web2.0 world.

Facebook users were polled on what set of T&Cs they’d rather adhere to, with initial results suggesting that 74.4% prefered the new set of rules.

And, what is possibly the final death knell for web 1.0, Yahoo announced this week that Geocities would shortly be closing it’s doors for good, with the growth of social networks, live forums and message boards taking over from the once valued at $5bn Geocities offering. All good things must come to an end, and it’ll be interesting to look back in ten years to see what web 2.0 innovations are committed to dust.

A Social Media Evolution

When you’re caught up in the middle of creating something, be it music, an electronic product, or a PR campaign, sometimes it’s very easy to become so engrossed in what you’re doing that you miss the bigger picture.

Social Media is currently the eye of a storm that is beginning to swirl faster and harder and is taking PR onto an entirely different level. Public Relations can now very much be seen as Personal Relations, and this brings with it a whole new set of engagement rules, for both brands and consumers.

These rules are not set in stone and are evolving all the time, and it will not be until we look back in 12 months that we know where we currently stand, and we’ll have a better picture of where we’re going.

Watch this video of Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, and let me know if you spot anything…

4 Quick Fire Questions: John Redwood

4 Quick Fire Questions returns with a new mini series looking at the importance of political blogging. As mentioned in my previous post The Political Power of Blogging, I’ve contacted four highly respected Politicians who are engaging with the blogosphere, for their views on just where we are going.

You can read more of John’s views on his blog, and I’d like to thank for him taking the time to put together his answers and share them with us.

The Rt Hon John Redwood MP

John Redwood is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Wokingham, and has held many posts over the course of his career including Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Shadow Secretary of State for Deregulation as well as being the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities after the 1992 General Election.

Why do you blog?

Because I disagree with much of the spin from the main sources that inform the media in our country, and tire of the trite rubbish that substitutes for political debate under this government. I want to help inform, amuse and encourage debate.

What makes a good blog?

There are many ways of doing it. My approach is to write about events, facts and interpretations that are ignored or considered differently elsewhere, to try to shed light on where we are, where we have come from and what might happen next. I like to expose the folly and falsehoods behind many common interpretations of events. I also enjoy writing some satire and parody, although real life is so absurd these days that parody gets difficult!

How often do you blog?

I write between one and three stories a day so it is worthwhile regular readers coming on every day to catch up and to make their own contribution by blogging back.

Do you want more audience participation, or does that become a chore?

Yes, I do welcome more feedback, comment and disagreement. I will post things that argue a different point of view, though I will remove anything which attacks a person or institution without proper evidence.

o2 iPhone Twitter Experiment: Concluded

Last week, I started an experiment to see if o2 would respond to a tweet I sent shattering into the Twittersphere.

The aim of the experiment was to see if I would get direct contact with someone from o2 who might be able to help me upgrade to an iPhone, without speaking to anyone from o2. It was a kind of a test too see if they would respond to a seemingly random tweet from someone they’d never heard from before.

Well, a bit disappointingly, they didn’t. As rightly suggested by several people ‘why not just @ them?’. Well, I could have done, but that would defeat the object. I have no qualms with o2 about a non-reply, and I have no issues with their customer service – let me make this quite clear. I have been with o2 for more years than I care to remember and they’ve always been pretty good.

What this demonstrates is that for brands who have an active presence online, the goal posts have shifted. For consumers online, the goal posts have shifted. For consumers offline, the goal posts are that little bit further away.

There have been several stories about brands actively engaging their customers on Twitter to solve issues. Comcast have a real person behind the scenes helping with queries for example. This means that a customer can have an issue resolved in real time and can get answers from a brand representative almost instantaneously, and, because it’s on Twitter, there’s a bigger prize than if the conversation was conducted over the phone.

Is this leading to Twitter snobbery? By using Twitter to engage with those customers online, are brands neglecting every customers who are not online, letalone on Twitter? This is a big issue that may leave some feeling a bit miffed to say the least. Why should Granny Smith be queue jumped by Tom 2.0 just because Tom is on Twitter? She shouldn’t, in reality she should probably get priority, but, because any failure to deal with a problem could spread like wildfire on our favourite micro-blogging platform, this happens.

So what has the experiment taught us?

Our expectations are changing. As customers we expect instant resolution; as brands we are expected to react within minutes, and this is an issue which is only going to grow.

Pirate Bay – A fight for a Right

Jed Hallam has tagged me into a post about Pirate Bay, have a look at his views on his blog, Rock Star PR…

Following the sentencing of the Swedish trio who run Pirate Bay last week, there has been a growing backlash against those who helped to bring about the decision.

Not only has Pirate Bay membership grown, but demonstrations have occurred and the IFPI (International Federation of the Pornographic Industry) website has been attacked by hackers eager for revenge for the industry body’s part in the trial.

Are you surprised? No, neither am I.

The problem here is not Pirate Bay. Nor is it the IFPI or the RIAA. It is not the actors, musicians or games developers who are at fault. And, it’s not the people who download music, films or video games. The problem we face is culture. Or rather, two very different cultures which are completely out of sync and need to be re-aligned before they implode.

First we have the culture of those that want to make money

Record labels, book publishers and film distributors have made money for years out of selling on goods which have not been created by them, at a profit, with little return for the artists. Companies such as EMI and Warner Brothers are worth millions because they have the power to make or break a product which needs their backing to get out to the wider public. Without these channels of distribution, bands would struggle to get airplay and films would fail to be seen on screen. With a free distribution model, who needs these guys? Nobody. Hence their requirement to try and shut off those methods of delivering material.

Secondly, the consumers of Instantaneous free goods

This is you, me, your dad and probably pretty much all of your friends. In the last ten years we’ve seen album leaks turn into free releases all because of the ability to share files for free through peer to peer networks. We want stuff, we want it now, and we want it for free. Why? Well why the hell not? If something we want is there to be taken without the need to pay for it, then what’s to stop us? It’s no different to making a mixtape.

Thirdly, the creators themselves

This is where the first two cultures collide. Many artists embrace the new technology, using it to share their work freely and promote themselves in the process. Many others of course, are not so willing to see all their hard work go for a bag of rocks. This will differ from maker to maker, but they are the people responsible for creating the music, games and films that we so liberally download for free, and they are often the least financially rewarded. That’s got to be unfair, right?

So what can be done to restore the cultural balance in order for everybody to get their fair share?

As a musician , I have released records (scroll down, it’s EP of the month) that I have worked hard to make, and hence, wanted to get something back for making. Without making the CD I would not have had the opportunity to play gigs and meet new people, and had the opportunity to miss out on that all important record deal.

But what about recording the music and then giving it away, for free, at gigs and online? If you are giving something extra to people who like your music, this helps to build a bond with them and encourage them to keep listening to your music and coming to see you live. It’s giving more than you are getting, which is a sure fire way to encourage loyalty.

Distributors need to look at ways of encouraging fans to keep buying CDs, films and games. As Jed said:

Music simply isn’t about singles and albums, it’s about the whole experience, man. Why don’t labels employ similar tactics to fancy advertisers and marketers? Sell albums that come in huge boxes filled with information, stickers, posters, access codes to secret sites, interview videos on USBs, rare tracks, live footage, branded memorabilia, booklets, additional artwork, karaoke versions, stripped down versions, remixes?

And why not go further? Let’s expand it further from music, by encouraging your fanbase to get involved and become a part of what you are offering.

Modding is huge in gaming – it’s the equivalent of remixing music – so why not get your fanbase to create new levels or characters for your games, then release them officially, for free, via your game’s microsite whilst still charging for your game?

Why not give your film alternate scenes and dialogue to let film fans create their own story and then make them available via Youtube?

You could get the your support base to create artwork for posters or even that shiny front cover of a box?

Do a Doritos and get avid fans to make online trailers and offline adverts?

By making a more inclusive package, you are excluding fewer people. Yes, there will of course always be ‘pirates’ who refuse to pay for anything, why not try to involve them rather than fight against them?

Compete and be beaten, or compliment and grow – what would you rather do?