This week:

• An Australian "futurist" predict the end of printed newspapers within 12 years
• Germany legislates to stop employers from auditing potential employees on Facebook
• Sports stars are banned from Twitter

Twelve years left for newspapers?

Australian media strategist Ross Dawson has predicted that newspapers will be irrelevant in Australia by 2022. He argues that the socialisation of content means the current media organisations and journalists will need to reinvent to share any future spoils. He doesn’t argue that newspapers will cease to exist, but that the current model will change significantly. He points to an iPad style news reader future where ideas are crowd sourced and the best journalists oversee conversations. This is already happening and it is likely there will be both victors and victims, as some adapt and share the profits of doing so, and others who either refuse to or are unable to adapt. 

German Facebook users get a reprieve  

Politicians in Germany are legislating to prevent employers from checking the Facebook profiles of future employees. The proposed law will allow employers to check the profiles of prospective employees through professional networking sites such as LinkedIn, but not through “social” sites like Facebook. Individuals have always been able to restrict the content on their profile though most do not. For those of us not protected by legislation the advice is to restrict access to your profile, or just don’t let anyone take compromising photos of you in the first place. 

Sports stars banned from Twitter

There have been numerous examples of sports team news being leaked by players on Twitter before any official announcement. Others have sought to hit out at perceived injustices from their employers. Rather late in the day several sporting bodies have reacted by banning their players from tweeting while on official duty. England’s cricketers have been banned, Leicester’s rugby team have suffered the same fate. These sporting bodies are facing the same challenges as many organisations. They are no longer able to control the message or the content. In the past there would only be a very small coterie of official spokespeople. Now anyone with a phone can broadcast to the world with bored sportsmen having more time than most. Closing ranks is no longer possible and a different approach will have to be adopted as a social media generation won’t accept being cut off. 

This week:

• News International to build a bigger paywall
• Not all is rosy with Google Streetview
• Facebook accounts for almost half of the average Briton's mobile web usage 
• Facebook launch location service Places
• Is Facebook moving away from open third party applications?  

Control C and Control V. Copy and Paste. Simple tools that have significantly impacted the way we work, in particular the speed at which we can work, and similar to most things in life short cuts bring along with them certain risks. 

We have heard for several years about "copy-paste journalism" and the corresponding effects of poorly researched reports. Couple that with the common practice of non-statisticians making absolute statistics-based statements illustrate the danger of widespread misinformation. Ben Goldacre has made this latter issue the central theme of his website and critically analyses statistical claims, amongst other claims, made in articles ranging from large company payouts to reports on child abuse. 

Warning labels, sell-by dates, expiry dates and the like are found on countless products and services in an attempt to offer transparency, inform and basically protect the consumer. Should one extend this service to the field of journalism and the related information which they provide? Tom Scott has wittily created a collection of pseudo warning labels which could be applied to inform on the content's accuracy. The pictures of the labels speak for themselves and make a good case for the ever increasing duplication of information. Apart from the above illustration other label examples include warnings that the article is basically a copy of a press release, the medical claims within a given article have not been peer-reviewed or that a particular story was sourced from Wikipedia.

Although these labels are comical in nature they do address a real issue and form part of a wider debate about the quality of journalism, especially in a time when staff and resources are being cut. Given that Metrica measures what is published the implications of this topic are of obvious interest.

This week: two lists, one classifying the leading styles of engagement in social media and the other giving reasons to blog; The Independent newspaper publishes falsities picked up on Wikipedia; Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales argues that The Times paywall will fail and Foursquare open a shop.

How do you engage with social media?

Social media engagement advice has been given by Mashable, where Matthew Latkiwicz writes about picking “the right social media engagement style.” He outlined the “top five engagement styles that dominate the social web.” They are:

1. “The game show host”: social media content dominated by competitions and special offers
2. “Your friendly neighbourhood service rep”: where social media acts as an extension to the customer service team and opens up a direct channel for communicating with customers and addressing their needs
3. “The beehive”: encourages all employees to participate, rather than through one official corporate profile.
4. “The community builder”: those who create a community around their activity, sharing news and opinion that may or may not be directly business related, but that the community will be interested in
5. “The friend”: conduct social media accounts to continue to develop personal relationships with their customers

Reasons for companies to blog

Reading “Why entrepreneurs should write” at Readwriteweb resonated with my own reasons for writing for Metrica’s and my own personal blog. It is a great way offorcing yourself to collect your thoughts, form views and ensuring that youkeep yourself up to date with developments in your sector. As the post outlines, writing a blog shouldn’t just be for personal reasons. ShinyShiny suggest “at least five good reasons why:”

1. Transparency – it really shows what your company is about
2. Allows your company to put your side of the story across
3. Creates an opportunity for customers to give feedback
4. New content on your site mean new eyeballs
5. Creates an opportunity for internal opinion forming

The Independent publishes falsities taken from Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a wonderful resource though I am often staggered at the level of trust people sometimes have in a site that leaves itself wide open to pranksters. Wikipedia pages have famously been open to abuse, such as the profile of Thierry Henry. I was therefore amazed to read that The Independent newspaper had made an incorrect statement about founding of the Big Chill music festival, which had so clearly been placed on Wikipedia by a prankster. The Media Trust published research today that suggested regional news outlets are spending less time researching stories and speaking to sources, but The Independent’s recent slip-up might suggest this is afflicting a wider portion of journalism that we thought.

 

Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales doubts The Times paywall

Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales has described The Times paywall as a “foolish experiment.” He contrasted the examples of the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, who each have specialist content that people will pay for, with that of The Times which offers a mainstream service. This is something many commentators suggest is a likely outcome, though this depends on whether other news outlets also start charging.

 

Wales cited an example where he Tweeted a question he gave to Lord Brown, former BP CEO, which was reported in The Times. People stopped sharing this when they realised they couldn’t view the content Wales had linked to.

 

Foursquare opens a shop

Check-in service Foursquare has now opened its own shop selling badges and t-shirts. This means that those who unlock coveted “prizes” will be able to own a physical copy of this. As the current ‘Mayor of Metrica’ I wonder if I can ask the company to buy me a badge (pack of five for $5) to show off my elevated status? 

 

Whistle blowing site Wikileaks yesterday published thousands of pages of secret US military documents relating to the Afghanistan war. This has been dubbed the “biggest intelligence leak of all time” and provides the most detailed picture of the conflict to be drawn to date. Working in partnership with newspapers The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel to publicise the leak shows both social and mainstream media working together to set the news agenda. This is likely to have serious political consequences. The true impact of the publishing of these documents is yet to be established.

This week: The Times loses two thirds of its online audience after forcing users to pay to access its content; UK politician Tessa Jowell apprears as a landmark on Google Maps; British Airways embraces mobile technology; Coca-Cola get their hands burnt in a Facebook promotion and smartphone game Skies of Glory bridges the Apple – Google divide.

The Times newspaper has reportedly lost 66% of its users since erecting a paywall around its content. While this is not has high as the 90% that some had predicted, further losses could follow when the price is increased following an introductory offer. Former Guardian editor Peter Preston highlights the Daily Mail as an example of a news site that doesn’t need to “put up a paywall or lose money”. He argues that “the online market, like the print market, is beginning to set different rules for itself” where it is possible for different models to happily co-exist.

UK Labour politician Tessa Jowell has appeared on Google Maps as a landmark, a right normally reserved for notable buildings and businesses. Search Google Maps for the Houses of Parliament and there she is. Like any landmark on Google Maps it is possible to read reviews of Jowell, these describe her/the landmark as variously: “deeply moving” and “profound.” Jowell herself was reported to have said: "In opposition it can often feel like you've been forgotten in the public mind. I'm therefore grateful to Google for putting me back on the map."

It appears that Jowell isn’t the only politician marked on the map. According to the Google Maps Fail blog it is possible to get driving directions from for Prime Minister Tony Blair to Tessa Jowell. This should take you four hours and 44 minutes.

New Media Age has reported that British Airways is launching a smartphone app allowing customers to check in and board planes with their phones.

Coca-Cola has been forced to cancel a Facebook promotion that allowed the company to ‘hijack’ users’ profiles to post messages in their name. This went awry after the promotion led to the Facebook profile of a 14 year old girl state she had seen a hardcore pornographic film. The mother of the child posted a complaint to the popular parenting forum Mumsnet. Coca-Cola withdrew the campaign and have since apologised.

The highly competitive smart phone market looks increasingly like being dominated by Apple and Google. This doesn’t necessarily mean that owners of handsets running Google’s Android operating system need to miss out on fighting their iPhone owning peers. Popular iPhone game Skies of Glory allows Android and iPhone users to ‘fight’ each other meaning that whichever system you operate you can stay social with your friends – provided playing World War II games is your idea of social.