Argh – there’s no news, what do I do?!

Christmas and New Year is always a bit of a weird time for me. I am an Information junkie, happy to admit it by the way, and I always find the shutdown of the media a wrench.

News stops being reported on as the journalists that feed our souls with opinion, fact and coincidence go off on their holidays, save only for the odd high profile incident.

News doesn’t stop happening of course, it’s just that with fewer people writing about it, it appears that there is less news.

I think that many people welcome this after 12 months of information saturation, well, I don’t :) It is, to me, the perfect time for news to be reported. Everyone is at home with access to TV, radio and the Internet and will be likely watching news at some point – so why not report doubly hard to get people’s attention, with in-depth investigative reporting instead of useless TV show repeats?

I assume i’m in the minority here of course… ;)

It’s also interesting to see who remains on Twitter throughout this period sharing content as well the usual personal nuggets, instead of disappearing completely until the return to work.

What d’you think? Do you like the week long break or do you find it difficult to cope?

Copenhagen: The Reaction

The Copenhagen summit, with an aim to find a way for countries to work together to prevent climate change, has ended with an agreement put in place.

There is, controversially, no law in place to ensure each nation will be doing their bit.

Here’s what the UK national newspapers have made of it…

The Mirror

Copenhagen climate conference approves global warming deal despite opposition

The UN climate conference in Copenhagen today approved a deal to tackle global warming proposed by world leaders, despite opposition from a number of countries.

…it has no long-term global targets for emissions cuts or a timetable to turn the agreement into a legally-binding treaty – leading environmental campaigners and aid agencies to brand it toothless and a failure.

The Sun

Climate Deal Chaos

PRESIDENT Barack Obama’s claims of a “milestone” climate change deal were last night blasted by critics.

White House officials said the pact – known as the Copenhagen Accord – was an “important first step” but “not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change”.

Mr Obama left the talks in Denmark last night – BEFORE a final vote.

The Guardian

Copenhagen closes with weak deal that poor threaten to reject

The UN climate summit in Copenhagen has formally closed with a deal many countries admit falls far short of the action needed to tackle global warming.

The non-binding accord, which the US reached with key nations including China and Brazil, “recognises” the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but does not contain commitments to emissions reductions to achieve that goal.

The Telegraph

Copenhagen climate summit: Ban Ki-moon hails deal as ‘essential beginning’

Delegates finally agreed to ‘recognise’ the US-brokered deal, which was arranged between five key nations including China and Brazil but which did not secure unanimous support.

But Mr Ban said the agreement must be made legally binding next year.

Daily Mail

Climate change summit accepts ‘toothless’ US-backed agreement – but deal is not legally binding

The fudged deal – backed by Britain, America, South Africa, India, Brazil and China – came after a day of bitter rows and divisions in which the United Nations talks came close to collapse.

Last night, President Obama said the deal was an ‘unprecedented breakthrough’ and that countries would add firm commitments next year.

But its flimsy nature was exposed when he admitted targets put forward by countries ‘will not be by themselves sufficient to get to where we need to get by 2050′.

The Times

‘Lukewarm’ climate change deal in Copenhagen

The UN climate conference in Copenhagen today approved a deal to tackle global warming proposed by world leaders, after an accord Barack Obama brokered with China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

But the UN Secretary General today admitted the non-binding agreement at the conclusion of the conference was not “everything everyone had hoped for”, as he confirmed a deal had finally been done.

The Daily Express

CLIMATE NUT BROWN WILL RUIN BRITAIN

GORDON Brown was yesterday accused of signing a £500billion death warrant for Britain’s economy in his desperate quest for a climate change deal.

His pledge – the biggest reduction proposed by any western industrialised nation – was made despite a continuing debate about whether mankind is to blame for climate change.

Ignoring the dire state of the country’s finances and record Government borrowing figures announced yesterday, Mr Brown has already pledged to hand over £7.5billion to an international fund to help poorer countries cope with climate change.

Whilst I am not surprised by the negative reaction to the deal, I am somewhat taken aback by the Express, whose only agenda seems to be to make life as difficult for Gordon Brown as possible, rather than focussing on the issues at hand, and The Sun’s focus on Barack Obama’s exit also left me a little worried that the right wing oriented press are using this as an opportunity to bash the government.

What do you think?

Thinking of Themes Not Places

Chris Osburn came out with something at The Sway, that really got me thinking. Chris was talking about his involvement with a Last Minute.com iPhone app which aims to provide you with the best places to go in London for whatever you like (cakes, cricket, cocktails etc), when he said:

Think of London as a collection of themes, not places

This resonated and has really stuck with me the more I’ve thought about it.

I like the idea that humans are a collection of thoughts, ideas and feelings that thread themselves through the universe – a collision of different memes – and perhaps it played to that.

If we lok at London as a conscience with different ideas and themes running through it, art, music, architecture, and ignore the way that it is divided by borough, culture and politic, it seems all of a sudden an even more vibrant place, living and breathing.

Think of the timings of how different chains of shops open and switch on their lights, or the way that the buses and trains are timetabled for example.

Each is seperate but totally inclusive in the flow of people, information and shape the direction that the city moves in, ignorant of where we’re from or where we’re going, and I like that.

I wonder if we all thought in themes and not places, how different things might be.

What do you think?

YellowFire Marketing – No Thanks

I just received the following e-mail from Arianna at YellowFire Marketing:

Hello,

My name is Arianna, and I am a PR Strategist for YellowFire Marketing.

We are putting out a new product next month that allows bloggers, such as yourself, to find sponsored review opportunities with NO fees and with NO ONE outside of our company ever seeing that your site is taking payment for reviews.

We are currently pre-registering bloggers, and can actually get you setup with some
great opportunities before the site even launches.

We WON’T send anyone your email info.

We WILL send you info on ton of great oppurtunities.

NO search engine or competition will be able to get into our system to see if you are taking on such oppurtunities.

If you are interested let us know about your blog here, http://reviewzy.net/ and we will be in touch.

Thank You,

Arianna.

I refer you to this to guess what I think of it.

What gets to me is that YellowFire Marketing are blanket spamming bloggers without even checking their name, letalone their PR policy. Transparency, honesty and integrity are key in my non-participation.

I’d like to re-iterate – I will not be taking part in this, and I urge you not to either.

The Sway

On Tuesday last week, I was invited by SIan Meades to speak briefly and kick off a debate about disclosure in the blogosphere at a networking event called The Sway.

I did my bit following speakers from Last Minute.com, and Gary Andrews, James Whatley and Daniel from London Interesting.

This was my first Sway and I was really interested by the format the evening takes: there are two talks, followed by a chat with that month’s sponsors, a quick break for everyone to get their breath, before two speakers are invited to kick off a couple of debates where each person only has 2 minutes to make their argument before the floor is opened up for the audience to get stuck in.

The presentations themselves were interesting and extremely useful, but it was the debate where I think The Sway really saw a different value added to the social media sphere. At LBM for example, there is always several presentations and then the attendees go about their chatting/drinking etc on their own.

The opportunity then, to enter into a debate, was a new prospect from a personal point of view.

It was really interesting to get different points of view from people who I rarely get to speak with, and to watch the debate taking place was great. It’s very easy to become ensconsed in our own social media bubble and we can forget why we’re doing what we’re doing and how it can affect a wider sphere of influence than we can imagine.

It is also very easy to forget that most people don’t know what social media is…

I hope to make the next Sway and I hope that there will be more time afforded to the debate so that everyone gets an opportunity to share their insights.

Getting into PR

I was recently asked by Ben Cotton to contribute a range of blog posts he’s pulling together aiming to help grads get into PR.

I actually managed to meet Ben in a totally unrelated instance, which was ace :D

I always find it interesting to try and answer questions on recruitment as I’ve not followed a normal route in, so I hope I can provide a different perspective, and show that getting a job in PR isn’t down to who you know or what degree you did, but having the right attitude and a little bit of knowledge and experience.

You can have a read of the Q&A here, and I hope it’s useful!

Heads Down, Eyes Up

The rather musically inclined Jed Hallam tagged me in a challenge to create two tracklists.

As Jed puts it:

Definitions;

Heads down: (verb) To put your head in a downward position and dance manically. Until your eyes bleed a bit. Or your mouth falls off.

Eyes up: (verb) The lifting of one’s eyes after a night of ‘heads down’. The state of mind that yearns for the sun rise. Or more tequila.

So, here you go… Incidentally, I wonder if all of these will go into one epic playlist?

Heads Down
True Faith – New Order
Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division
Disappointed – Electronic
Black And White Town – Doves
Waterfall – Stone Roses
Slip Inside This House – Primal Scream
Love Like A Fountain – Ian Brown
Five Man Army – Massive Attack
Heavyweight Champion Of The World – Reverend And The Makers
Takuya – Battle
Vertigo – The Libertines
Crazy Beat – Blur
Spread Your Love – BRMC
One To Another – The Charlatans
I Ain’t Saying My Goodbyes – Tom Vek
Wolf Like Me – TV On The Radio
Talons – Blog Party
Test Transmission – Kasabian

Eyes Up
Atmosphere – Joy Division
All You Do Is Talk – BRMC
Blue Light – Bloc Party
Alone, Jealous And Stoned – Secret Machines
Stealing Tomorrow – Great Lake Swimmers
Hoppipolla- Sigur Ros
Hawaii – Mew
Life In Sound- Trespassers William
Prospekt’s March – Coldplay
4.35 am – Gemma Hayes
Great Expectations – Elbow
Ragged Wood – Fleet Foxes
In Our Talons – Bowerbirds
Johnny Mathis’ Feet – American Music Club
Don’t Let It Bring You Down – Neil Young
Caught By The River – Doves
Burning Benches – Morning Runner
Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors – Editors

So, in the spirit of passing this on, i’m tagging Lolly, Mauricio Samayoa, Dan Lazarides, Elliot Pearson, Ian Bach, Ross Churchill and Anna Stuart.

7digital Expands

Record of the Day reports that MP3 download specialists 7digital are expanding with the launch of two new MP3 stores in Finland and Norway.

This means that a catalogue of 8 million odd tracks will be available to a total of 16 countries, and this will be music to the ears of their partners, of whom Spotify is one.

The expansion means that 7digital will have the largest reach of any vendor in Europe, and are looking to be in a solid place financially following HMV’s recent acquisition of half the company for £7.7 million.

Ben Drury, CEO of 7digital, said “This gives us the largest international reach of any MP3 retailer. Our partners and potential clients now have the option to operate digital music promotions across the a vast number of markets, through a single partnership with us”.

According to the press release:

At launch both stores will provide best selling albums at sale prices. The finish store will discount top albums to €5.99, while Norway’s will be priced at 56NOK.

Regular tracks and album pricing on the Finish store are €0.99 and €9.99 respectively. In Norway tracks are 8NOK while albums start at 80NOK. Both stores will sell content from all four major labels plus key independents including Bonnier Amigo, Phonophile and Artspages.

Sounds like a bargain to my ears.

MySpace Music officially launches in the UK

Myspace Music has officially launched in the UK. Stuart Dredge pointed out that, despite an embargo preventing him from writing about the service’s launch, a Myspace designer tweeted about it’s launch 17 minutes before the media were (in theory) allowed to publish anything.

Stuart has acknowledged this on Music Ally.

UPDATE: Now the embargo has passed, you can read Stuart’s thoughts here

What this has demonstrated is that in the world of social media, the embargo is a threatened beast, and what better way to annoy a blogger than to give them an embargo and then break it. I’m sure the Myspace designer didn’t mean to break an embargo and was harmlessly sharing his excitement of the service going live.

It’ll be interesting to see if this inadvertent slip has any affect on how the service is received or how the social media sphere discusses it. It will also be interesting to see how sustainable the service is as users, used to spam and becoming widely regarded as behind the curve as Myspace itself falters, sign up (or don’t).

Euroblogosphere Development

I stumbled across a group of bloggers who are at the very cusp of developing their community as I was travelling around the Internet on Saturday, and it got me thinking about how blogging communities start, grow and where do they end?

I was intrigued by Joe Litobarski’s post, a response to the proposal that a Euroblogosphere and community isn’t emerging.

In it, Joe argues that there is no Euroblogosphere as such, but sets himself the challenge of building one (wow, tough cookie!) from the embryonic communities that already exist.

He says that:

This might mean pulling even further back from hardcore European politics – and focusing more on European life. It might mean translating bits and pieces from national blogospheres for the English-speaking Euroblogosphere. What I definitely think it means is sharing skills learned and best-practices between bloggers. I’m going to try to work harder with other European bloggers to improve their own blogging, and ask for their help in improving mine.

To do this, Joe has organised a Euroblogger meetup taking place over Twitter using #euroblog, Google Wave and Skype on December 3rd from 20:00 GMT.

I think this is a great idea and i’ll be watching with interest to see how the Eurobloggers unite and start to build the foundations of a community as strong as those like the Mummy or Tech Bloggers.

There are many individuals writing about their views on European policies and culture, but these tend to be very localised as far as I can see – there are very few writing about Europe as a whole and I’ll be interested to see how the work of a few individuals will affect this.

This sprt of meetup is of course a regular occurrence in London, and Andy Bargery has provided the focal point for this – I wonder if Joe will fill the same role, only on a European scale?