Journalistic.co.uk - the UK digital journalism blog

One luxury you don’t usually get when you blog is someone to sub your work.

Sure, it is raw and said like it is. But sometimes, you can do with a quick pair of eyes, or atleast one eye to take a look over your writing.

There can only be so many times when you re-read what you have written and sometimes an obvious typo is still there.

Note to myself: Need to ask Neil at The Guardian the question: Is there any subbing done on the Guardian blogs?

Note to myself 2: If blogs take off and there is a proven commercial business in them, will we see a need for subs?

And if we see these subs, is there a specific blogging sub style that will emerge?

Sorry folks for the lack of updates. A combination of other work related projects, Passover and the general election means it has been 13 days or so since the last posting!

Rest assured normal service will be resumed from next week.

But in the meanwhile, here are things I currently like:

1. Typepad - The off-the-shelf blog service from Six Apart really does work out of the box. For around £9 a month you get plenty of webspace, 5GB of traffic and unlimited blogs. Now, if only someone could do something similar with Wordpress.

2. 1899 - Call the USA for 0.5p a minute

MediaGuardian reports on a new development from the Financial Times - afternoon publishing.

The Financial Times is to follow in the footsteps of the London Evening Standard by launching an afternoon freesheet to keep its readers informed about the top business stories of the day.
FTpm will be sent out to corporate subscribers every afternoon from Monday to Friday. It will also be available in pdf format on FT.com.

My only question, I can understand why the reason to do a print paper in the afternoon. It allows them to connect with their readers by print, but the website already updates during the day, so why bother with putting up a PDF? You should be able to get all the news via the website.

Yes, I know it is an easy thing to do. Once a story is written for the print edition, it can then be transferred into the PDF file that makes up the newspaper, but just because it is easy to do and can be done, doesn’t mean it needs to be done.

Unless of course, the FT is looking to see how popular the paper will be as a PDF file as opposed to just a website?

Either way, it will be interesting to see how this grows. Maybe they will consider creating a Sunday FT that is PDF only?

The BBC is rolling out its podcasting services by offering downloads of 20 shows including parts of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme as well as Mark Kermode’s film review slot of Five Live.

“These technologies can transform the value we deliver to audiences and make our programmes more accessible for both new and existing audiences,” said Simon Nelson, controller of BBC Radio and Music Interactive.

Of course, this is all existing content as opposed to orginal programming. I guess over time, the BBC will look to create specific and unique content that will be postcast.

Meanwhile, original podcasting is being developed by Podshows. Set up by former Virgin Radio DJ Daryl Denham and former Radio One DJ Wes Butters, Podshows is offering a range of entertainment for downloading to an MP3 player.

Podshows has lined up a number of well known DJs and presenters including Tony Blackburn, Terry Christian and Steve Penk to create original programming for the site.

The cost to download or stream a show to an MP3 player of computer is 99p. I suspect over time, they will also develop other pricing models including a monthly or annual membership scheme. Looking at a service like Napster which went from being a pure pay as you go service to a fixed monthly cost, shows the benefit of going down this route to any provider of entertainment content. People feel comfortable with fixed costs.

Rupert Murdoch has said that his News International company is starting to make sure that it doesn’t end up as an also-ran when it comes to the web and digital media.

Speaking to American editors at a conference in Washington, Murdoch said:

“We need to realise that the next generation of people accessing news and information, whether from newspapers or any other source, have a different set of expectations about the kind of news they will get, including when and how they will get it, where they will get it from, and who they will get it from.”

MediaGuardian further adds:

He said consumers between the ages of 18-34 were increasingly using the web as their medium of choice for news and neglected more traditional media.

Young people’s attitudes towards newspapers were “especially alarming”, he said. “Only 9% describe us as trustworthy, a scant 8% find us useful, and only 4% of respondents think we’re entertaining.”

He described the shift in attitudes as “a revolution in the way young people are accessing news”.

If like me you want to visit any of the three main political parties, Labour, Conservative and LibDems, don’t expect their respective websites to help you out in terms of getting in contact with a relevant press person.

While they all want to make it easy to read about what they are preaching, their websites fail to provide press contact details. With all of them you get to a press release section and no where on those pages are a press contact name, email address or even a phone number.

Isn’t the whole point of sending out or issuing press releases that you include some basic contact details so that journalists can get in contact?

Labour’s section of press releases is here but when clicking on any release, there are no contact details.

Conservative’s can be found here and like Labour there is nothing.

Lib Dem’s press releases are here and sharing a similar stance to Labour and the Conservatives they don’t provide any contact information.

So here is the issue. Political groups should be accountable and contactable. You would think they are trying to hide something from the press and indeed the public by not making it easy to get in touch with them?

The Guardian has become the first national newspaper to blog the forthcoming election.

Following in a similar design and style to other Guardian blogs, the election coverage will see its team of political and other reporters blogging each day from now until the election and no doubt a few days after as well all try to make sense of the outcome.

One interesting posting invites readers to send in election leaflets they get. Send in? This is the internet age, couldn’t we scan them and email them over?

Well, after a couple of days I think I have now recovered from my Vegas jetlag which means, time for some updates.

Vegas was a good trip. Plenty to see and do when not taking part in the annual AJPA conference that I attended.

A few years back, if I brought along my notebook, I would have had to use a dial-up connection to check the web and email. But that was then and this is 2005 and most of the major hotels offer high-speed internet access, or atleast claim to do so. Let me explain the “claim” bit.

The first couple of days, I was staying at the so-called luxury of The Venetian, but scratch below the surface and you soon discover that this Four Star hotel is really mutton dressed as lamb.

High-speed internet access barely worked for a few hours a day when I was there. I was on the phone to techincal support more than I actual was able to go online. Seems there were a number of problems that they were having which they couldn’t resolve. I guess one of the most pitifiul for them was the fact when you booted up to the connection page, it started to show the welcome screen for Venetian rival hotel Treasure Island.

So I complained about this and they waived the $9.95 for 24 hours internet access charge. For reference to anyone considering to stay there, if you think the 24 hour access starts when you first log in, think again. It starts from 2am to 2am or part thereof. That means if you check in for one night at say 6pm and use the internet ftrom say 7pm to 9pm. Then you go to sleep and wake up at 6am and use it again until 9am and then check out, they will charge you for two days. A bit of a cheek given you have not been there for two days.

I have to say the two days at the Venetian was one one of the worse experiences of my time ever in Las Vegas and I won’t go into the other problems and issues, like every card game started at $15. They pitch themselves as a classy place, but delve a bit deeper and it really has no class.

It’s amazing that they can get works of art from the Guggenheim, but they can’t get the internet to work from a hotel room.

Anyway… after two days moved on to The Orleans where the conference was taking place and here it was $9.95 for high-speed internet access from the hotel room. And guess what? It worked and even better, they even offered wireless access from within the room. This may be a beta-test as it wasn’t advertised but I could connect my IBM T41 and use the built-in wireless to connect to the web.

Even better was the fact that The Orleans 24 hour access was exactly that, a real 24 hours starting when you first connect.

The going rate for connection at most hotels seems to be $9.95 a day, some of the upscale hotels are coming in at $10.95 or even $11.95, none seem to be including it as free as part of the stay.

But even at $11.95 it is a good deal compared to some of the charges you can pay in the UK for 24 hour internet access at hotels.