The Forrester Newspaper has sucess on YouTube
September 27, 2007 Posted by Matt in : Bristol , 4 commentsAfter experimenting with video clips during the last year, another of our local papers is taking great strides in the new media world: The Forester has launched a regular internet video service - Ftv - providing video news bulletins.
It’s proving to be quite a hit: one of its reports, broadcast on YouTube notched up sufficient hits to be the 12th most watched video in the UK that day, and the 50th most viewed news and politics video in the world!
The Forester’s editor, Viv Hargreaves, said: “I’m absolutely delighted that my news team have shown such enthusiasm for the multi-media approach which is really putting The Forester on the map. It has certainly enhanced their experience of journalism and should prove useful to them in future.
Interestingly, the venture has been made possible by The Forester having secured sponsorship from a local car dealer, with an advert for them being embedded in the news bulletins.
Author : Matt Anderson - my blog
Should PR agencies be allowed to edit Wikipedia?
September 7, 2007 Posted by Matt in : Bristol , 3 commentsAs six of the top ten PR agencies have been caught making dubious changes to Wikipedia, Montage Communications asks should PR agencies be allowed to change Wikipedia?
I potted an article in PR Week regardingsix of the top ten PR agenices in the UK being warned by Wikipedia for dubious edits. For the record those caught out were FD, Weber Shandwick, Hill & Knowlton, Freud Communications and someone at Finsbury changing Anne Diamond’s profile…. (why!?)
I would ask “Should PR agencies be allowed to make changes?” We already write all the press materials and blogs for our clients so why not Wikipedia? Our feeling is that as long as what you are writing is not misleading or under the auspice of “astroturfing” (practice of creating false grass roots support) then why not, isn’t it just another form of media?
Ofcom report signals that Britain has been taken over by a digital Revolution
September 5, 2007 Posted by Matt in : Bristol , 1 comment so far
The Montage Team was interested, but not surprised, to read on BBC Online’s latest news this week, that the net, mobile phones and MP3 players are revolutionising how Britons spend their time.This latest news is revealed in Ofcom’s annual report and reports that older media such as TV, radio and even DVDs are being abandoned in favour of more modern technology.
It also shows that women, in some age groups, are the dominant web users and older web users spend more time online than any group.
Among children it showed that web and mobile phone use is growing at the expense of video games.
The 330-page report takes a comprehensive look at the way Britons use new and old media and reveals a nation in love with its media, gadgets and hi-tech gear. To save you time the Montage team has picked out the headlines from the report!
The statistics are pretty shocking, the average Briton now spends 50 hours per week on the phone, using the net, watching TV or listening to the radio. However, the mix of how much time is spent on each one has changed radically over the last few years.
Daily mobile phone use is up 58% on 2002 and, over the same period, net use has grown 158%. By contrast Britons spend far less time watching TV, listening to the radio or chatting on a fixed line phone.
The report, the fourth annual survey from Ofcom, revealed big differences in the technologies that different sectors of the population prefer.
The headline stats that the Montage team have pulled out of the report are:
- Among Britons aged 25-34, women account for 55% of the time this group spends online (mostly on Ebay!)
- For first half of 2007 90% of UKsingles sales by volume came from digital downloads to the computer or a mobile handset.
- 16% of Britons aged 65+ spend 42 hours per month online - more than any other age group
- More than 75% of 11 year olds have their own TV, games console and mobile phone
- 15% of 13-15 year olds and 7% of 10 year olds have their own webcam
Analysis of time spent online reveals that Britain is a nation of shoppers and social networkers. More time was spent on eBay than on any other web site, and social networking sites Bebo, MySpace, Facebook and YouTube are all in the top ten sites by time spent.
The impact of widening participation in the creation of user-generated content can be seen from the sixfold growth in the three years to October 2006 in the number of articles available to consumers on Wikipedia, The worldwide community of ‘producers’ has grown significantly since the site was first founded, with nearly 40,000 users worldwide making at least five edits a month on Wikipedia by October 2006.
The web 2.0 revolution has taken a pace with 1,845 new articles appearing daily on Wikipedia, 3,744,000 new photos are uploaded to Flickr and 65,000 new video clips are loaded onto YouTube. Assuming an average YouTube clip length of 30 seconds, 542 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every day – a year’s worth of new video appearing on the site every sixteen days!
In the seven months to May 2007, the monthly UK unique user base of YouTube increased by nearly a half to 6.5 million users, while Wikipedia’s increased by 30% to 6.4 million. MySpace’s audience has increased by 25% since November 2006, and FaceBook’s user base has quadrupled since October 2006. The one exception to the pattern of rising popularity is Flickr, whose audience in the UK appears to have stabilised at just under a million unique users every month.
Author - Aime Southgate
