If you don't like gratuitous self-promotion, please look away now...

I did my regular stint on Sky News' sky.com programme last night.

Maybe it's the same in all newsrooms, or maybe it's just Sky - but I did notice on one screen in the studio a real-time display of the % of people clicking on each story on the Sky news website. Most impressed that the real time involvement obviously influenced the content. Nice one.

It also then influenced the programme I was on which features a countdown of the "most clicked" stories on Sky's site, as well as the ones I commented on - which are deemed to be the biggest movers across the web.

My other stencil is a Banksy

Spent a fine few minutes enjoying the stencils under Waterloo on Sunday Night. The Banskys and Blek le Rats were great, but I also really liked some of the smaller, cheekier stencils.

Art which puts a smile on my face. Nice.

Full set here on Flickr

Last.fm V Youtube

I think I owe thanks to Iain Tait for this, but can't quite remember. Anyway - loving this last.fm and youtube mashup.

Worth a look at - here's mine.

But your own will no doubt be much better.

Measurement camp to measure social media - progress

I don't normally trust my levels of work productivity in pubs. But with a 10am start in London's most new-media friendly hostelry (Coach and Horses on Greek Street), and met by Mr Will McInnes armed with two portable flip charts, I knew today was going to be a bit different.



I missed Measurement Camp 1 (I was on hols) but caught up on the blogs after, so this was my first taste of what some of the social media industry's finest would get up to when let loose with caffeine and marker pens. And it was a very positive experience.

I wondered just how helpful everyone would be. The answer is: extremely.

I wondered how strong the thinking would be. The answer is, again: extremely.

And I wondered who the primadonnas would be. There were none

Maybe every industry has events and sessions that seemed as transparent and honest as this. But somehow I doubt it. In one room above a pub there was a genuine desire to develop something together, which no one person or agency would "own" but everyone could use - from PRs to social media planners. (Almost worthy of a Billy Bragg song isn't it?) An opensource movement indeed.

Anyway, I came away both enthused and enthusiastic about how the industry is developing, and also how those of us in that industry can develop the tools and techniques to prove it's effectiveness.

The proceedings will be written up on the wiki, and added to and amended there - so I'm not going to go into things in detail here (though I will do there)

But hats off to Mr Mcinnes for kicking things off and getting this group together, and for trying to encourage others to pick up the baton to take it forward - count me in.

And hi to everyone who was there - including Rachel Clarke, Dan McQuillan, Helen Lawrence, Matt Morrison, Adrian Moss, Anna Carlson, Katie Howell and all the other fine souls (who's names I didn't write down properly) from far afield. See you next time.

Ditch the bloggers code of conduct - learn some media law instead

According to Jemima Kiss's story in today's Guardian

A survey by legal firm DLA Piper said 46% of web users think bloggers should sign up to a code that reflected the laws on defamation, intellectual property and incitement, with 15% ambivalent and 4% strongly opposed.

Now I work in PR. I also blog. I can spot a PR survey when I see one (though why I can't find it on the DLA Piper site I don't know), but this seems particularly self serving.

Such a code of conduct just would not be worth the paper it is written. Surely the law is the law and if you break it, then you're responsible.

Yes, maybe bloggers need a bit of education in media law, but suggesting that there is a code of practice is a waste of time.

Isn't it?

In the meantime Mike Butcher (of techcrunch fame) has a very handy primer on defamation for UK bloggers. Worth a look at.

Amnesty's "torchure" video

Top work from Amnesty - their new film marking 100 days before the start of the Olympics in China.

The Sky's the limit

Sky News' Sky.com site has had something of a revamp. I like it. Of course I'm biased, as I'm a regular contributor/pundit on the programme, along with all sorts of proper web luminaries like Clay Shirky (his new book is excellent), Popbitch, Jeff Jarvis and Iain Dale.

They've given me and other contributors a bit of vid (apologies for the pre-roll, but I guess that's how they keep the programe on the air) to help plug the show.

Have a look, or check out their new blog. They do collect together a lot of decent stories from around the world every day. Think that programme Lenny Henry did on BBC1, but for grown ups. And without Lenny Henry. So altogether much much better.

Breakout - a number of clever homages

For some reason, Breakout is everywhere at the moment. I like the way that Altogether Digital use it on their site. But the cleverest use has to be this one to promote the N-Gage. Not only is the stop motion animation amazing. But the game is great...

A simply great application

TV Guide are in a spot of bother with the broadcasters over deep-linking to their content (and therefore wrapping their own ads around it), but that doesn't detract from a simply great product which combines information, a loose social network around something people feel very strongly about (TV), and an extremely "sticky" site.



I've long thought that in a multi-channel world, where people can access media in a non-linear fashion there are a number of key steps to ensure people can actually find that content.

1) Create advance buzz around the content itself (via trails, posters, word of mouth)
2) Deliver it via a trusted brand (hence all the broadcasters very carefully branding their channels as signposts to the content)
3) Make it easy to find - either via specific search, or by accident.

And it's point 3 that's going to be really interesting going forward, particularly when it comes to TV programmes. In short - it's whoever who controls the EPG who has the power in this relationship with the viewer. I'm not going to predict who that will be (and quite like the fact that at least some of it is regulated by OFCOM) - but it's no co-incidence that positions on the Sky EPG change hands for a small fortune.

Where it all gets even more interesting is when more and more people start to use things like tvguide, or tvtv, or even joost or bebo, using the service to both find things they want to watch them, and then to watch them within that portal. Interesting times ahead. Especially when the content is either on-demand, or the apps will record them for you (tvtv) or add a reminder to your calendar (tvguide) for you.

And I'll put good money on tvguide.co.uk being a big player in the years ahead. But Kangaroo (what a name) will launch with a bang and soon try and jump into the lead (sorry)...

Definition of a community manager

I'm not a great one for simply linking to other people's posts - but this one deserves it. Chris Brogan's post "on managing a community" is the most succinct take on the relatively new job/responsibility associated with online communities I've seen, especially when read with Nancy White's additions.

Worth reading the whole thing, but here's a taster:

Measurements

I’d measure my community manager on the following:

• Responsiveness to communications (blog comments, emails, twitter messages and forum threads) less than 24 hours max.
• Number of QUALITY blog posts read and shared via Google Reader.
• Number of meaningful comments (more than a few words, on topic, pertinent to the space) on appropriate blogs, videos, and other media per month.
• Overall quality of her Twitter stream ( maybe a 60/30/10 mix of industry-related / personal @ comments / and off-topic).
• Engagement on our blog/community/network. (Number of subscribers, number of comments, number of links out to other blogs from our community site).
• Number of quality blog posts and linking posts (probably a 40/60 split between original and linked, though some would argue for 30/70).
• Eventually, number of links from other sites to our blogs and media.

One to point people towards who are still a bit unsure of the brave new online world...

Everything you wanted to know about yourself but were always afraid to ask

One of the central principles about social media and widgety goodness is to make little applications and games useful, interesting, entertaining and/or illuminating.

There's a lot of them around, many of which FAIL, but I really liked this London Mayoral Election quiz as it actually asks specific questions which directly relate to the policies of the main candidates. Though it obviously doesn't take into account all the tactical voting which (hopefully) will make a big difference on Thursday.

Other than that (and partly because my wife recently did Myers Briggs) I've also had a play with the personaldna one, which suggests I am a "Benevolent Leader". I guess it's a bit like newspaper horoscopes - they're not exactly going to have a category which says "waste of space" are they?

Benevolent Leader

A new and expensive hobby

I wish I discovered snowboarding 20 years ago. I wish I discovered skateboarding 30 years ago. I wish I had better co-ordination and a better sense of balance.



But none of those things stopped me from learning to snowboard a few weeks ago in Austria. It was hard, hard work. But I managed it. And towards the end I really enjoyed it. To the point that I'd really like to do it again. Soon.